Precautions against Chronic Wasting Disease.av

[Adamant]

Having had a number of American clients hunting here in the UK this year, I wondered how many of the SD's Sporting Agents, Outfitters and commercial stalkers took precautions to prevent Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) being spread to the UK by clients from the USA?

I've noticed that a number of Scottish stalking agents include precautionary measures in their contracts, such as requesting that hunting kit, particulary footwear, is thoroughly cleaned with a bleach-based cleaning agent prior to travel. I've been giving informal advice to our clients up to now but I've just written a new section for our own sporting contract to cover this issue.

Anyone doing something similar?

​adam.

 

[JabaliHunter]

Well done to them. It represents a huge risk and if it were to get a hold in the UK the consequences could be catastrophic. Think scrapie in sheep or mad cow disease in cattle...
http://www.bds.org.uk/chronic_wasting_disease.html

 

[JabaliHunter]

from the link above
​

How Can You Help Prevent Entry of this Devastating Disease to Europe? CWD is highly infectious and the infectious agent is very resistant to both weather conditions and normal disinfectants so it can remain in the environment for a long time. Additionally, it has been shown to stick to soil particles very efficiently. The only way to inactivate the infectious agent of CWD is to soak articles in a solution of bleach that has 20,000 parts per million of active chlorine for one hour or, alternatively, 2 molar sodium hydroxide. This treatment would obviously be highly detrimental to most clothing, footwear and hunting equipment. Therefore it is essential that hunters visiting Europe from North America and Europeans returning home from hunting trips to North America do not bring contaminated or potentially contaminated articles of clothing, footwear or other hunting equipment into Europe. This is also important for non-hunters visiting affected areas in North America as their footwear, clothing and camping or fishing equipment etc. could also become contaminated and introduce the disease to Europe.

Meticulous cleaning of all adherent debris will significantly reduce the risk of introducing CWD to this country, as will restricting hunters to bringing their own rifle only rather than all their hunting equipment. However, clothing and footwear for use in Europe should be bought in Europe and any that has been used in North America should remain there and trophies would have to be soaked in bleach as stated above to ensure decontamination.

 

[finnbear270]

from the link above
​

I can agree with the prevention measures, but what would a trophy end up like?, is there some special process?

 

[JabaliHunter]

Timely bump, especially as folks may be travelling back from hunting in the US this Fall...

Defra's document has a Scottish focus, but applies to England and all deer too...
http://www.defra.gov.uk/animal-trade/files/cwdleaflet-160713.pdf

DON'T BRING IT BACK OVER HERE WITH YOU!!!

 

[762Scot]

Must say I didnt know about this disease. Many thanks for the education.

 

[sharkey]

It would appear reasonable now to assume that CWD is just a new variant of scrapie. It is most likely that the original cases of CWD in cervids occurred in a research facility where elk were grazed on pasture infected with scrapie infected sheep. Elk from this facility appear to have become seed stock for many liberations into the wild throughout the USA.

Food for thought?

Sharkey

 

[JabaliHunter]

You may be right - in any case, according to the document "The prion is transmitted in deer body fluids and body parts including urine, faeces, saliva, central nervous system tissues and meat. The prion can remain infectious for up to ten years when bound to soil, several years on stainless steel and it defies normal farm disinfection processes."