DNR to collect samples looking for CWD in Hampshire and Hardy Counties

Before the technology of electronic game check, DNR personnel could easily collect samples from hunter harvested deer

ROMNEY, W.Va. — For a second straight year deer hunters killing a buck in West Virginia will be able to check the animal in with the Division of Natural Resources electronically.  All indications are the E-Check program has been well received by both the agency and hunters who now can get the proper documentation made in many cases from the spot where the deer fell.

One consequence of the increased convenience of electronic check is the lack of access by DNR biologists to those animals for data collection.  Check station collection points were once an easy place to keep tabs on herd health with a couple of days of work, but without the need to have them visually checked at an area gas station or other game checking location, the agency’s researchers don’t have that luxury anymore.

It’s particularly troubling in Hampshire and Hardy County where there is a great need to monitor deer for Chronic Wasting Disease.  Therefore on the first two days of buck season, November 21-22, any deer killed in those counties must be checked electronically, but must also be checked physically by the DNR at nine monitoring stations which will be set up in the region.

“Other states across the country have instituted ‘carcass inspection days,'” said DNR Deer Project Leader Jim Crum. “If hunters harvest an adult animal they should bring it in and we’re going to sample it.”

The agency needs to collect a piece of the spinal or brain tissue to test for the presence of CWD.

The disease continues to spread across the landscape after its discovery more than a decade ago in Hampshire County in the community of Slanesville.

“What we’ve been monitoring in Hampshire County, it seems to be increasing in occurrence,” Crum said. “We also have a PhD graduate student at WVU who is studying all of the pieces of tissue we have collected from theses animals over the years.  He’s looking at gene flow across the landscape to see if there are some geographic barriers.”

Special regulations on deer hunting in the zone are still in effect which include a prohibition on baiting or transporting the carcass out of the area unless it has been deboned.

The first positive case of CWD was discovered in a road killed deer picked up by the Division of Highways.  Crum said amazingly that’s become the most effective way they’ve found for checking for the prevalence.

“Looking at our data early on in Hamphsire County, road kills for some reason, seem to be a better surveillance mechanism for picking it up than hunter harvest,” Crum explained. “By the time we went into the 2005 season in Hampshire County we knew we had five positives.  We set up 12 check stations from hunter harvested deer and collected 1,016 samples and got zero (positives).”

Crum was unsure why the road killed deer seemed to yield more positives than those taken by hunters.  He allowed the possibility the disease could cause the animal to be slowed just enough to not be able to escape getting hit.   Still, collection of the tissue samples from hunter harvested deer remains a key to the monitoring and surveillance program. Hunters killing a buck on the first two days in Hampshire and Hardy are required to not only check them in electronically, but bring them to one of the established data collection points.

Those locations are:

Hampshire County

–Slanesville General Store – Route 29, Slanesville (corner of route 29 and Springfield Grade Rd.)
— L & M Market – U.S. Route 50, Augusta (across from Augusta Fire Hall)
— WVDNR District II Office – 1 Depot Street, Romney
— Country Store – Route 28, Springfield
–Capon Valley Market – U.S. Route 50, Capon Bridge (east side of town)

Hardy County

— N & S Restaurant – State Route 259, Mathias
— Baker Volunteer Fire Department – 17940 State Route 55, Baker
— Judy’s Drug Store parking lot – across from Vetter’s Mini Mart – 433 S. Main Street,at the corner of S. Main Street and Brighton Avenue, Moorefield
— Old Fields Country Store – U.S. Route 220, Old Fields





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