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As the hunting season continues, hunters can submit deer heads for chronic wasting disease (CWD) testing. Much of the provinces border is a mandatory submission area, and freezers are set up across the province for hunters to drop their deer off.
Chronic wasting disease is an ongoing problem, with no treatment or vaccine available. It’s caused by a misfolded protein, called a prion. These prion diseases include mad cow disease, or Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease in humans. CWD is present in animals in Canada, the US, and parts of Europe and Asia. It was first recognized in 1967, and was identified as a prion disease in 1978.
When a deer or caribou has CWD, the symptoms can range from excessive salivation, increased drinking and urination, loss of fear of humans, tremors, and confusion or repetitive walking.
CWD transmits between animals through contaminated food, water, soil and other surfaces, and infectious prions are shed through saliva, urine, feces, blood and carcasses. As it stands, there have been no confirmed human cases of CWD, however, laboratory studies in mice and monkeys have suggested possible susceptibility. Hunters are advised to never consume meat from sick animals, and to test deer and caribou in CWD-affected areas.
The province of Alberta collects the samples from hunters each year, and the program tests more than 2,000 heads each week in November. Since 2005, the province has detected 7,289 cases of chronic wasting disease in wild cervids in the province. Last year, CWD was detected in 25.1 percent of mule deer that were tested, with the infection more common among the males.
For Albertan hunters, freezers will be available for deer heads 24 hours a day, until mid-December. Instructions for submitting deer heads can be found here. To provide a usable sample, the head must be removed from the neck. Experts say the antlers and antler skull plates can be removed without testing being affected, but hunters are being asked to avoid aiming for the head, as this can damage lymph nodes and brain tissues needed to test for CWD.
Hunters are also encouraged to set up an Alberta RELM account, and ensure your email is up to date, in order to receive electronic test results. The sooner you submit, the sooner you get your result. However, testing typically slows during the holiday periods of December and January.
Heads submitted after mid-November won’t be tested until January or February.
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