Dear Representatives & Concerned DNR officials,
Please find attached the recently released report “Both Sides of the Fence: A Strategic Review of Chronic Wasting Disease Management Costs and Benefits, A Report Prepared for the Canadian Wildlife Federation by Dr. Paul C. James, Research Fellow, Canadian Plains Research Center, University of Regina October 2008”.
This is a very extensive review of the disease, its socio-economic impact and future thoughts regarding how to best handle the management of this disease into the future. It is imperative at these historic times, when governmental and private economic resources are strained to the point of near collapse that we must be extremely prudent in the management of our resources, both financial and natural.
I believe as you review this report, especially its conclusions from page 18 on, that Dr. James findings are closely aligned to what I presented to the Natural Resources Commission back in October of last year.
-The disease “Again, despite earlier dire predictions, the levels of deer and elk hunting in jurisdictions with CWD appear to be healthy, with minimal threat to the important social and economic benefits that hunting brings.”
In my October report I recommended that the concerns of all stakeholders need to be factored in to any decisions and it is clear that in many times the response to CWD infection has caused more damage than the disease itself has.
I showed you in my report that many other factors other than feeding and baiting are implicated in the transmission of this disease and Dr. James emphasizes many of these same points including the factors involved with prion enhancement in certain soil situations.
In light of this report, it is your responsibility to take a step back and reanalyze where you have been and where you are headed as you allocate your critical resources as Dr. James says “Even in jurisdictions with longer histories of relatively high CWD prevalence rates, such as Wyoming and Colorado, deer
populations and hunter participation are healthy. It might be argued that it is prudent to apply the precautionary principle in the case of a prionic agent. Certainly, while one should never say never in such cases, there are far greater known risks to our wildlife in North America, most notably continuing habitat loss and the impacts of certain invasive species. As such, it may be a wiser strategy not to redirect scarce resources from the efforts to address these much more powerful ecologically disruptive forces”
It is imperative that as a public representative you take a second look at the information that has dominated your decision process as Dr. James’ report lends a more practical and realistic approach to the facts at hand today in the understanding and management of Chronic Wasting Disease. Certainly the proposed legislation to extend the feeding ban in Michigan will do nothing to limit or control the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease and will lead to the unnecessary death of numerous White-tailed Deer in extreme winter conditions such as we are experiencing this winter.
Sincerely,
Jeffrey F. Powers DVM
Powers' Do It Best Hardware
26259 Main Street
Beaver Island, Michigan 49782