Each time John Bowers receives an envelope from the animal disease testing lab in Athens, Ga., he breathes a sigh of relief.
"It means we're in good shape," he said. "If there was a problem, they'd notify us immediately - with a phone call."
A call could herald tough times for Georgia's whitetail deer herd, and for the state's hunters.
The fear is that chronic wasting disease, a neurological disorder found in Wisconsin deer in 2002, could spread to the Peach State.
Bowers, assistant game management chief for Georgia's Wildlife Resources Division, oversees testing programs aimed at keeping local deer free of the disease.
Wisconsin, where $20 million has been spent on efforts to contain the disease, is a long way from Georgia. But so is Colorado - where Wisconsin's outbreak is believed to have originated.
The disease is still under study by scientists who remain divided over its origins and potential threat to humans.
It was confined for many decades to remote areas of the West, but Bowers said transportation of animal tissue and live animals likely spread the malady.
"Until deer quit going across state lines, it's going to continue to pop up," he said, noting that three more states -West Virginia, New York and Illinois - confirmed CWD cases in their deer population this year.
Georgia, like many other states, adopted laws in 2003 banning importation of elk, deer or other animals known to carry the disease.
"It's illegal here in Georgia, but we're not naive," Bowers said. "We know deer are being brought into the state illegally."
Such traffic often involves hunting preserve owners who buy deer with good antler genetics in hopes of juicing up their local gene pool. But with a disease that can lie dormant in an animal for years with no symptoms, stocking deer from other areas is dangerous.
This season, biologists from Georgia's regional wildlife offices quietly gathered their annual quota of tissue samples that will be tested for CWD at the University of Georgia's Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study Center.
"This will be the fourth year we have sampled," Bowers said, noting that tissue will be tested from approximately 600 deer.
The surveys started in 2002, with tests of 382 deer; followed by 654 in 2003 and another 610 in 2004.
The sampling is hard work but is also necessary, he said.
"We get them from hunting clubs, deer coolers, some wildlife management areas - it's kind of a random sampling of al the areas around the state."
Tissue is taken from each animal's brain stem and retro-pharyngeal lymph node on the back of its throat.
"The tissue is placed in a preservative fluid, numbered, labeled and sent off," Bowers said. "Over the next few months, for the rest of winter into the spring, they'll be running our samples and we'll get a report back."
Bowers, of course, hopes the report is in writing - and routine, with no positive results.
If an infection is confirmed here in Georgia, the response is swift and unforgiving.
"We'd decide on a radius from a point where the sample came from, and start immediate herd reduction," he said.
"It would be a depopulation zone where we go in and shoot every deer that can be found. It won't be fun and it won't be pretty."
In Wisconsin, a similar response included the extermination of tens of thousands of deer over hundreds of square miles - a scorched earth solution for which no other options are known.
"Wisconsin has worked hard and spent a lot of money," Bowers said. "But this year they had another deer that was positive outside their containment area."
Were the disease to reach Georgia, where the deer herd is estimated at 1.2 million, it likely would spread rapidly and could wipe out the population within two decades.
Conversely, were a small outbreak to occur, the efforts to contain it could create fear among those who consume venison and also cause fewer people to hunt.
A reduction in hunters could cause a population surge in deer contributing to more car accidents, crop damage and suburban wildlife problems.
"In Wisconsin, they had a small, short-term decrease in deer hunters," Bowers said. "We think we could recover from that it if happened here."
The best outcome, he said, will be to continue testing and maintain strict enforcement of laws banning transportation of deer.
Reach Rob Pavey at 868-1222, ext. 119 or rob.pavey@augustachronicle.com.
Chronic Wasting Disease Facts
- CWD is a neurological disease found in deer and elk, thought to be caused by a misshaped protein, called a prion, that changes healthy proteins into abnormal proteins.
- The disease is contagious, incurable and always fatal, although it can incubate with no symptoms in an infected animal for many years.
- Infected animals develop sponge-like brain lesions that cause loss of body functions, behavioral abnormalities, emaciation and death.
- CWD is classified as a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy and is similar to the widely feared "mad cow disease" in cattle.
- Current research suggests humans are resistant to the disease. Although the possibility of human infection remains a concern, there are no verified cases of humans contracting CWD.
- The disease was confined to remote areas of Western states for many years. In 2002, it was discovered in Wisconsin's whitetail herd, and in captive deer or elk herds in nearby states.
- This year, infected wild deer animals have been found in New York, Illinois and West Virginia.
- Georgia is devising its own contingency plan, which would include a massive effort to exterminate all deer in areas found to contain the disease.
Sources: CWD Alliance, Ga. DNR, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
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