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Michigan panel OKs rules for wildlife rescuers
TRAVERSE CITY — Volunteer wildlife rescuers in most of Michigan will be able to resume caring for orphaned or injured deer under new rules issued by the state Natural Resources Commission.
A statewide ban on deer rehabilitation was issued after a pen-raised doe on a private Kent County ranch was found in August to have chronic wasting disease. The prohibition was among steps taken to prevent the fatal ailment from spreading to wild deer. Another was a ban on deer baiting and feeding in the Lower Peninsula, which remains in effect.
No other case of chronic wasting has been detected in Michigan. More than 8,000 deer have been tested statewide, Department of Natural Resources spokeswoman Mary Detloff said today.
Under a regulation approved by the commission last week, deer rehab will remain outlawed in the Kent County CWD Surveillance Zone, which includes nine townships. The ban also continues in seven counties in the northeastern Lower Peninsula dealing with an outbreak of bovine tuberculosis in deer and cattle.
Deer from sections of Kent County outside the surveillance zone and from adjoining counties can be rehabilitated. But they must be marked, segregated from deer from other counties and eventually released in their county of origin — but not within the surveillance zone.
The adjoining counties include Montcalm, Ionia, Barry, Allegan, Ottawa, Muskegon and Newaygo.
In the remainder of the state, rehabilitation can resume without restrictions. However, deer will have to be marked before release.
The DNR is talking with the Michigan Wildlife Rehabilitators Association about how to mark the deer, said Dennis Knapp, the department’s wildlife rehab permit coordinator. The likeliest method will be placing a “freeze brand” on the animal with liquid nitrogen, he said.
Three years of testing will be needed to confirm that chronic wasting disease has not spread to wild deer in Michigan, Knapp said. In the meantime, the DNR has concluded that allowing deer rescue to resume outside the surveillance zone is “an acceptable layer of risk,” he said.
About 160 rehabilitators across Michigan care for orphaned and injured animals — not just deer, but also small mammals such as squirrels and raccoons. Some take birds and even reptiles.
The goal is to care for them — and treat any injuries — until they can survive in the wild.
Many deer wind up with rehabilitators because people find fawns alone and erroneously believe them abandoned, when in fact the mother is close by, Knapp said.
“It’s always best to just leave the animal be, but some people just have to intervene,” he said. “They’re looking to do good.”
Diane Solecki, a rehabilitor with Howell Nature Center in Livingston County, said many of her colleagues had considered the statewide ban excessive. But the revised policy seems reasonable, she said.
“When you find out what is involved with this chronic wasting disease and what it could do to Michigan’s deer — it’s just horrific,” Solecki said.
Dickinson County rehabilitator Jessy Drum said it was hard to understand why the Upper Peninsula should have been affected by a single case of the disease in a captive herd hundreds of miles away.
“It’s pretty farfetched, the whole scenario,” Drum said.
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