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Hunting resumes in CWD's shadow
Caution expressed, but turnout strong
By Theo Stein, Denver Post Environment Writer
October 13, 2002
BUFORD - The campfire crackled and the Milky Way peered out from behind a veil of clouds as the outfitter and 10 chilly hunters chewed over their prospects before the first day of elk season on the Western Slope.
Craig Arndt of Wisconsin, left, took a bull elk in the Flat Tops area with the help of guide Jeremy Jameson. Photo by Cynthia Hunter.
As he has in years past, Ute Lodge owner Karl Maser explained where to find elk Saturday amid the slopes of golden aspen that tumble from the Flat Tops to the White River, and what to do once they got one.
But this hunting season, Maser is adding a new and unwelcome twist to his talk: what hunters should know about chronic wasting disease.
Conversations with more than 20 hunters from California to Pennsylvania and New York suggested it's going to take more than vague fears of a mysterious disease to keep them from coming back to Colorado's high country every fall.
"I'm definitely concerned," said 39-year-old Steve Spirak of Arvada, who has closely followed news accounts of the disease's spread through wild herds and farm elk. "And I'm going to look hard at an animal before I take it," he said, standing in the parking lot of a Meeker store with his 40-year-old brother, Fred.
The fatal brain ailment of deer and elk, once thought confined to northeastern Colorado and Wyoming, was found this spring in wild mule deer inside a commercial elk ranch just 22 miles from Maser's cluster of cabins along Papoose Creek in Rio Blanco County.
After four sick deer were found inside the pen, stunned Colorado Division of Wildlife biologists shot more than 1,000 deer and elk within a 5-mile radius, revealing six more infected deer but no sick elk.
With the discovery, a shadow of foreboding swept across the hunting-dependent Western Slope. Restaurants, sporting goods stores, hotels and hospitals from Montrose to Meeker and Craig depend on the flush of money that arrives each fall with hunters in search of a trophy mount or a freezer full of meat.
Last year, the terrorist attacks and a slumping economy provided a frightening preview of what could happen if disease fears kept hunters away. Hopes for this season were muted by, first, drought and then fire. In recent weeks, four more infected game animals had been identified, two from samples submitted during the early season black-powder hunt.
But during this five-day limited season that started Saturday, national forest parking lots were packed and horse trailers were streaming up the dirt road to the Spirak brothers' camp "like it was I-70," Fred Spirak said.
A letter sent to hunters by the Division of Wildlife that details the discovery of a sick deer on The Motherwell ranch near Pagoda, outside of Steamboat Springs, didn't deter 68-year-old John Mason of Rochester, N.Y., from a scheduled hunt on rancher Bruce Seeley's spread just 3 miles away.
"If I get an elk, I'm going to get it tested," Mason said. "And if it looks like it's set up for Halloween, I'm not going to take it. But I'm not that worried."
The disease, first identified in 1967, is believed to be caused by an abnormally folded form of a natural brain protein. It turns its victims into drooling, disoriented wrecks as it eats microscopic holes in their brains. But the infection can incubate for years before symptoms become apparent.
Mason was the only one of nine hunters reclining in Seeley's bunkhouse who said he was certain he would submit his quarry's head and pay the $17 to test it. While there's no evidence that a person has ever become sick from eating the meat of a CWD-infected deer or elk, state health officials recommend against it.
"We've both got young daughters at home," 29-year-old Jason Cook of Denver said as he sat around the Ute Lodge campfire with friend Doug Duncan. "And the test is only $17. So for us it's crazy not to test it."
Maser said he also feeds his family on the fall harvest. But he has another reason for recommending that all of his clients have their game tested.
"The head I submit gives the division information on the animals in our area," he said.
Indeed, the state wildlife agency dramatically expanded its testing program this year, not so much to reassure worried hunters but to give biologists the clearest look yet at where the disease is and isn't.
The Division of Wildlife was prepared to process up to 50,000 deer and elk brains this fall, but so far hunter participation has been mildly disappointing. Only one in five archers and black-powder hunters submitted heads for testing.
Biologists sampled more than 2,000 deer heads between 1996 and 2001 on the Western Slope, including more than 1,000 near Meeker and Kremmling, where they thought they'd be most likely to find the disease.
But if 20 percent of successful hunters in the three rifle seasons that started Saturday do have their kills tested, it would give the Division of Wildlife 20,000 data points to analyze and be by far the most comprehensive sampling ever conducted.
For those hunters whose animals test positive, the wildlife agency will refund their license fee or offer them a new tag. And the agency will offer to dispose of the meat.
Many sportsmen and residents of small Western Slope towns such as Rifle, Meeker and Craig believe chronic wasting disease may have been present for years but eluded detection. Each had a story about a sick deer or mangy elk that a friend or neighbor shot just over the hill.
"I think the DOW's going to catch a lot of heck for not doing more about it," Seeley said. Many said they also feel the news media has blown the problem out of proportion.
"It seems to me the hype (has) done more damage than the disease," Meeker taxidermist Bill Wille said.
Not everyone agrees.
"It does have the whole West Slope on edge - because our economy runs on deer and elk," Maser said.
The Division of Wildlife depends on hunters to trim the state's bloated elk herds, which numbered 350,000 before the hunt. Officials worry that chronic wasting disease fears could accelerate declining hunter participation among young people and hamstring their management efforts.
That won't happen in Mike Grinstead's family. The 36-year-old cook said he has hunted since moving to Meeker in 1979.
"This year, my boy's 12," Grinstead said. "So I'm taking him up to the national forest to teach him respect for the land and for other hunters, just like my daddy did with me."
Caution expressed, but turnout strong
By Theo Stein, Denver Post Environment Writer
October 13, 2002
BUFORD - The campfire crackled and the Milky Way peered out from behind a veil of clouds as the outfitter and 10 chilly hunters chewed over their prospects before the first day of elk season on the Western Slope.
Craig Arndt of Wisconsin, left, took a bull elk in the Flat Tops area with the help of guide Jeremy Jameson. Photo by Cynthia Hunter.
As he has in years past, Ute Lodge owner Karl Maser explained where to find elk Saturday amid the slopes of golden aspen that tumble from the Flat Tops to the White River, and what to do once they got one.
But this hunting season, Maser is adding a new and unwelcome twist to his talk: what hunters should know about chronic wasting disease.
Conversations with more than 20 hunters from California to Pennsylvania and New York suggested it's going to take more than vague fears of a mysterious disease to keep them from coming back to Colorado's high country every fall.
"I'm definitely concerned," said 39-year-old Steve Spirak of Arvada, who has closely followed news accounts of the disease's spread through wild herds and farm elk. "And I'm going to look hard at an animal before I take it," he said, standing in the parking lot of a Meeker store with his 40-year-old brother, Fred.
The fatal brain ailment of deer and elk, once thought confined to northeastern Colorado and Wyoming, was found this spring in wild mule deer inside a commercial elk ranch just 22 miles from Maser's cluster of cabins along Papoose Creek in Rio Blanco County.
After four sick deer were found inside the pen, stunned Colorado Division of Wildlife biologists shot more than 1,000 deer and elk within a 5-mile radius, revealing six more infected deer but no sick elk.
With the discovery, a shadow of foreboding swept across the hunting-dependent Western Slope. Restaurants, sporting goods stores, hotels and hospitals from Montrose to Meeker and Craig depend on the flush of money that arrives each fall with hunters in search of a trophy mount or a freezer full of meat.
Last year, the terrorist attacks and a slumping economy provided a frightening preview of what could happen if disease fears kept hunters away. Hopes for this season were muted by, first, drought and then fire. In recent weeks, four more infected game animals had been identified, two from samples submitted during the early season black-powder hunt.
But during this five-day limited season that started Saturday, national forest parking lots were packed and horse trailers were streaming up the dirt road to the Spirak brothers' camp "like it was I-70," Fred Spirak said.
A letter sent to hunters by the Division of Wildlife that details the discovery of a sick deer on The Motherwell ranch near Pagoda, outside of Steamboat Springs, didn't deter 68-year-old John Mason of Rochester, N.Y., from a scheduled hunt on rancher Bruce Seeley's spread just 3 miles away.
"If I get an elk, I'm going to get it tested," Mason said. "And if it looks like it's set up for Halloween, I'm not going to take it. But I'm not that worried."
The disease, first identified in 1967, is believed to be caused by an abnormally folded form of a natural brain protein. It turns its victims into drooling, disoriented wrecks as it eats microscopic holes in their brains. But the infection can incubate for years before symptoms become apparent.
Mason was the only one of nine hunters reclining in Seeley's bunkhouse who said he was certain he would submit his quarry's head and pay the $17 to test it. While there's no evidence that a person has ever become sick from eating the meat of a CWD-infected deer or elk, state health officials recommend against it.
"We've both got young daughters at home," 29-year-old Jason Cook of Denver said as he sat around the Ute Lodge campfire with friend Doug Duncan. "And the test is only $17. So for us it's crazy not to test it."
Maser said he also feeds his family on the fall harvest. But he has another reason for recommending that all of his clients have their game tested.
"The head I submit gives the division information on the animals in our area," he said.
Indeed, the state wildlife agency dramatically expanded its testing program this year, not so much to reassure worried hunters but to give biologists the clearest look yet at where the disease is and isn't.
The Division of Wildlife was prepared to process up to 50,000 deer and elk brains this fall, but so far hunter participation has been mildly disappointing. Only one in five archers and black-powder hunters submitted heads for testing.
Biologists sampled more than 2,000 deer heads between 1996 and 2001 on the Western Slope, including more than 1,000 near Meeker and Kremmling, where they thought they'd be most likely to find the disease.
But if 20 percent of successful hunters in the three rifle seasons that started Saturday do have their kills tested, it would give the Division of Wildlife 20,000 data points to analyze and be by far the most comprehensive sampling ever conducted.
For those hunters whose animals test positive, the wildlife agency will refund their license fee or offer them a new tag. And the agency will offer to dispose of the meat.
Many sportsmen and residents of small Western Slope towns such as Rifle, Meeker and Craig believe chronic wasting disease may have been present for years but eluded detection. Each had a story about a sick deer or mangy elk that a friend or neighbor shot just over the hill.
"I think the DOW's going to catch a lot of heck for not doing more about it," Seeley said. Many said they also feel the news media has blown the problem out of proportion.
"It seems to me the hype (has) done more damage than the disease," Meeker taxidermist Bill Wille said.
Not everyone agrees.
"It does have the whole West Slope on edge - because our economy runs on deer and elk," Maser said.
The Division of Wildlife depends on hunters to trim the state's bloated elk herds, which numbered 350,000 before the hunt. Officials worry that chronic wasting disease fears could accelerate declining hunter participation among young people and hamstring their management efforts.
That won't happen in Mike Grinstead's family. The 36-year-old cook said he has hunted since moving to Meeker in 1979.
"This year, my boy's 12," Grinstead said. "So I'm taking him up to the national forest to teach him respect for the land and for other hunters, just like my daddy did with me."
