Chronic Wasting Disease – Insidious and Dire

March, 2017 – Darrel Rowledge, (Director, Alliance for Public Wildlife), gave a presentation at the Manitoba Wildlife Federations Annual General Meeting, calling for action to stop the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease.

New research points to the potential health risk to humans. Combine this with population-wide impacts on cervids, and consequences for the international trade of Canadian agriculture and agro-foods, and the consequences could be catastrophic.

Watch the presentation below.

To read the MWF’s recent press release concerning Chronic Wasting Disease click here.

“The possibility that thousands of CWD-infected animals are being consumed unknowingly by hunter families every year is cause for great concern,” said Dr. Brian Kotak, Managing Director of the Manitoba Wildlife Federation (MWF). This has been described as one of the most outrageous human susceptibility experiments in history. 

The combination of threats is sobering. CWD has been shown to persist and remain infectious in the environment indefinitely. Decomposing carcasses create contaminated ‘super-sites’ and clay-based soils can dramatically increase infectivity. 

The threats of CWD extend far beyond wildlife populations and human health – extending to agriculture and international trade. Plants contaminated through saliva, urine, or feces from infected animals can transmit disease and there is evidence of uptake via the root systems of agricultural crops growing in contaminated soils. The economic impact of trade barriers due to contaminate crops would be staggering.  – excerpt from October 20, 2017 press release

info@mwf.mb.ca
(204) 633-5967 / (877) 633-4868
4-999 King Edward Street
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3H 0R1