Officers will kill some wild deer & elk around ranch where

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Officers will kill deer, elk near game preserve.

The Pueblo Chieftain .

DEL NORTE - Wildlife officers will kill some deer and elk from the area around an alternative livestock ranch, because an elk raised at the ranch was found to have chronic wasting disease.

"Chronic wasting disease has never been found in wild herds anywhere in Southern or Western Colorado and we don’t expect to find it in the small number of deer and elk living near the facility," said Mike Miller, a Division of Wildlife veterinarian. "We’re taking this action both as a precaution and to allow us to test these animals for CWD."

The Colorado Department of Agriculture announced last month that elk with the disease were found at game ranches near Del Norte and Longmont. The agriculture department quarantined both ranches as well as a third ranch at Stoneham in northeastern Colorado that had shipped animals to the Del Norte facility.

"We don’t have a large number of deer and elk near the facility," said Jeff Madison, the DOW’s area wildlife manager in the San Luis Valley. "We probably will kill no more than a dozen deer and a dozen elk."

Madison said that the DOW also is asking hunters in game management units 79 and 80 to voluntarily submit the heads of deer and elk they kill during the upcoming big-game seasons. The heads will be tested for chronic wasting disease.

"We have tested nearly 2,000 animals in Southern and Western Colorado and have never found a case of chronic wasting disease," Miller said. "But as a precaution, we will continue our surveillance program in different portions of the state each year by asking hunters to submit the heads of animals they harvest."

Hunters will be provided with information on where to submit the heads.

Chronic wasting disease is a fatal neurological disease that sometimes is found in wild deer and elk.

 

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State to pay ranchers for healthy elk killed over wasting disease.

By Gary Gerhardt, Rocky Mtn News Staff Writer

Elk ranchers whose healthy animals must be killed because of chronic wasting disease will receive 80 percent of their worth, the state Captive Wildlife and Alternative Lifestock board agreed Friday.
Program officials have traced 148 diseased elk sold near Longmont, in Saskatchewan, at Elk Echo Ranch near Stoneham and at Rancho de Anta Grande near Del Norte to ranches in Colorado, said board chairman Jim Rubingh.

More than 1,600 animals will be destroyed in Colorado in an attempt to keep the disease from spreading.

"We will destroy the animals and compensate the ranchers for any that test negative for the disease," Rubingh said. "We will split the compensation 50-50 between the U.S. Department of Agriculture's $2.6 million indemnification fund, and our own $192,000 fund the elk breeders support by paying $8 per head of elk per year for such emergencies."

The board also placed a $3,000 per head limit on what will be paid for an elk although some prime bulls cost $4,500 or more, he said.

Since word spread about the disease, there have been offers from elk breeders across the U.S. to help replace animals, said Ron Walker, president of the Colorado Elk Breeders Association.

"We are like family and want to keep ranchers in business," he said.

The number of calls from concerned elk hunters has increased with publicity about the disease, said state Division of Wildlife spokesman Todd Malmsbury.

"We haven't found CWD in any wild elk outside the known infected area north of Longmont to Wyoming and east along the South Platte River," he said. "For elk, the number with the disease was less than 1 percent of those taken.

"People hear about captive elk in the San Luis Valley, North Park and eastern plains and think it is the same for wild elk throughout the state as well."

Division officers are shooting 10 mule deer and 10 elk that are known to have been within a mile of the Del Norte facility.

October 6, 2001