CWD UPDATE 58 May 3, 2005

A correction to the report from South Dakota in the last update. I had previously reported two whitetails and one mule deer positive from Wind Cave National Park. That should have been one whitetail and two mule deer. Additionally, South Dakota reports two new positives in elk. One that was from Wind Cave National Park and one that had been collared on the Park but collected west of the Park. This gives South Dakota a total of 11 positive cervids this year; four elk, four whitetails, and three mule deer.

The Nebraska Game and Parks Commission reports an additional positive mule deer from Box Butte County, east of Alliance, Nebraska in the established area. Commission staff collected the 3-½ year old female because it exhibited the clinical signs of CWD. Lymph node testing by IHC at the University of Wyoming lab returned a positive result.

A four-and-a-half year-old Holstein cow has been diagnosed as the 17th case of mad cow disease in Japan, the Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries Ministry reports. The cow had been kept in north Japan’s Hokkaido region. It was born in September 2000; the year before feeding cows with meat-and-bone meal was banned due to fear of infection with BSE. The cow was inspected after being suspected of BSE infection during preliminary tests on dead cows earlier this month and tested positive following examinations at the country’s National Institute of Animal Health.

A coalition of Canadian ranchers is suing the Canadian government for its “grossly negligent” role in handling the crisis over mad cow disease that has left the Canadian beef industry in shambles for close to two years. The suit holds the government and a multinational feed company responsible for more than $7 billion Canadian dollars in damages. That is around $5.6 billion U. S. Dollars.

The presumptive positive in a New York free-ranging deer has been confirmed by NVSL as positive. New York has adopted new emergency regulations in response to the finding of CWD there. They may be found on their website at http://www.dec.state.ny.us/website/dfwmr/propregs/index.html#189p The deer was an 11-month-old free-ranging white-tailed deer from the culling operation near the positive captive facility in Oneida County. The Cornell University lab found the positive and it was sent to VSL in Ames, Iowa for confirmation.

To date they have collected 236 samples in Oneida County with 187 not detected, 1 detected, and 48 pending. They have also collected 25 samples in Hamilton County with 25 not detected.

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