Hunters requested to assist with CWD monitoring

The province asks hunters to submit samples from harvested white-tailed deer to the continual losing illness (CWD) surveillance program.

The hassle goals to forestall the unfold of the deadly, untreatable mind illness affecting members of the deer household — together with elk, moose, and caribou — by way of ongoing monitoring and early detection, officers said on September 22.

This yr, the Ministry of Pure Sources (MNR) will conduct annual surveillance in two goal areas all through the searching season. They embody Central Ontario from Sharbot Lake to Midland in Wildlife Administration Items (WMUs) 56, 60, 62, 75, 76A, 76B, and 76E, and southwestern Ontario from Windsor to Chatham-Kent in WMUs 94A and 94B.

Through the fall hunt, ministry wildlife technicians can be canvassing these surveillance areas and asking hunters’ permission to take away a small quantity of tissue from deer heads for testing. This sampling won’t intervene with hunters processing their harvest, consuming the meat or having the deer head mounted, officers said.

CWD in surveillance areas

All hunters inside the surveillance areas are inspired to take the pinnacle of their deer (ideally inside a number of days of being harvested) to an MNR freezer depot. Depots can be open from early October to mid-December. Hunters submitting a deer head are requested to supply their contact info and the date and normal location of harvest. Hunters can discover their check outcomes at ontario.ca/CWD.

To report roadkill deer within the surveillance space that could be appropriate for testing, name the ministry’s Wildlife Well being Info Line at 1-888-574-6656, or e-mail CWD@ontario.ca.

For those who see a deer, elk, moose or caribou displaying indicators of CWD, resembling extreme lack of physique weight, tremors, lack of coordination or uncommon behaviour, please report it to one of many following:

• The Canadian Wildlife Well being Cooperative at 1-866-673-4781
• The ministry’s Wildlife Well being Info Line at 1-888-574-6656
• The ministry’s CWD surveillance program at CWD@ontario.ca

To be taught extra about how you can assist preserve CWD out of Ontario, go to ontario.ca/CWD

Fast info

• The primary 500 hunters who present a pattern from a deer harvested in every surveillance space can be given a collectable crest.
• Deer underneath one yr of age should not examined since CWD is much less prone to be detected in younger animals.
• Since CWD surveillance started, the ministry has examined greater than 16,000 hunter-harvested white-tailed deer in Ontario. CWD has not been detected in any of the samples examined.
• Ontario launched its CWD Prevention and Response Plan in December 2019 to make sure the province continues to attenuate the danger of the illness getting into or spreading inside the province.

To learn extra about CWD, click on right here

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