Opinion: Stopping the spread of fatal CWD in B.C. is likely to fail. Here’s why

It was really only a matter of time before chronic wasting disease (CWD) showed up in B.C.’s wild cervid population. After all, the fatal disease has been steadily marching west from Alberta and north from Montana for years. Finally, this past January 31, wildlife officials announced two deer from the Kootenay Region south of Cranbrook had tested positive. One was an adult mule deer buck, the other a mature whitetail doe.

While B.C. has had a CWD monitoring program in place since 2002, it has otherwise taken few steps to deal with the inevitable arrival of the disease. The province did respond with a handful of steps almost immediately following January’s announcement, aimed primarily at monitoring to get a handle on how widespread the disease might be within its borders. And there are promises of more regulations to come.

It seems the best that can be hoped for at this point, however, is to merely slow down the spread of CWD in the province—once the disease gets a foothold, it appears there’s no stopping it. Both Alberta and Saskatchewan continue to monitor CWD, for example, but their efforts to rein it in seem to have had little effect. After looking at the steps those two provinces have taken, B.C. is adopting what could best be described as a cautionary approach until officials have a better picture of how prevalent the disease might be.

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE

The initial response area includes four management units in the Kootenay region, where the province is considering increasing the hunter deer harvest and perhaps even instituting more culls (25 deer were slated to be culled this spring for testing). The idea would be to reduce deer numbers in the region, with the hopes of stopping CWD’s spread to surrounding management units. Nothing is firm yet, however.

Both Saskatchewan and Alberta have already engaged in extensive herd reductions, but their success has been questionable. Photos of pits full of dead deer taken during arial culls were a media nightmare for the Alberta government, while the increased hunter harvest in both provinces led many private landowners to restrict or shut down hunter access altogether. And for those living in the areas where the culls took place, it was gut-wrenching to watch once robust deer herds reduced to near extirpation.

For its part, B.C. will also introduce mandatory CWD testing for all hunter-killed cervids in the initial response area, as well as surrounding management units (testing of deer heads has already been mandatory in units close to the Montana border since 2019).

The province is also banning the movement of road-killed cervids out of the area, a move that will primarily impact trappers, who often use roadkill for bait. The reason for this is summed up by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency: “CWD spreads by direct contact between animals or from a contaminated environment to an animal. For example, the soil and vegetation can become contaminated by urine, feces or by the carcass of a dead animal.”

Hunters are highly mobile in B.C., travelling not only to other parts of the province, but also to neighbouring Alberta. They are being encouraged not to dispose of carcasses in the wild, but the province has made no arrangements for safe carcass disposal sites. This has long been an issue in Alberta and Saskatchewan, as well. B.C. is at least leaving the door open for carcass transportation and disposal regulations, however.

While baiting of ungulates is not permitted in the affected Kootenay Region, the practice remains legal in other parts of B.C. The province is looking at changes in that regard, as well.

URGENT NEEDS

In fairness to the B.C. government, it is in the early stages of dealing with CWD, and it just can’t sit back and do nothing (although in the end, nothing may be all it can do). While officials recommend not eating meat from CWD-infected animals, test results are currently taking months to get back to hunters. That’s led the B.C. Wildlife Federation to call for more rapid testing of hunter-killed cervids, as well as appropriate disposal sites for infected carcasses. The B.C. government should have at least been more prepared for those eventualities. After all, it was again only a matter of time before CWD arrived.

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