Pennsylvania Game News - October 2020 - 47

CWD within Containment Zones (CZs)
- small areas immediately surrounding a
new, isolated CWD detection. Harvests
there will be carried out with landowner
cooperation in an effort to remove deer
that may have come in contact with that
newly discovered CWD-positive deer.
Together, the samples collected in
ESUs and CZs will allow the Game Commission to assess CWD and adequately
monitor the effects of management actions, with the goal of slowing and hopefully stopping the spread of CWD.
The response plan outlines some additional strategies meant to control CWD.
For example, it proposes a ban on the
movement of high-risk parts - brains, spinal cords and spleens - from what's called
the state's CWD "Established Area."
That's where the disease is established on
the landscape and where CWD is unlikely
to be eradicated.
The intent is to reduce the movement
of CWD prions from higher-prevalence
areas to lower-prevalence areas within
Disease Management Area 2.
No one strategy will solve the state's
CWD problem in a short time period. Effectively mitigating the disease's effects
will require a consistent long-term effort.
"Chronic wasting disease is a serious
threat to Pennsylvania's hunting heritage,
the biggest we've faced in our lifetimes,"
said Pennsylvania Game Commission
President Charles Fox. "The fight ahead
of us will be a challenging one.
"We're committed as an agency to doing everything we can to win this battle
for the whitetails we hold so dear. But we
can't do it alone. We need the help of all
Pennsylvanians, and especially our deer
hunters, to help manage our deer herd as
well as this disease."
To view the CWD Response Plan in
full, go to www.pgc.pa.gov.
OCTOBER 2020

DMAP'S SURVEILLANCE ROLE
Like good detectives, deer hunters
follow clues each fall to cross paths with
wary whitetails.
T h i s ye a r, t h ey ca n p u t t h o s e
investigative skills to use in helping
sniff out the potential spread of Chronic
Wasting Disease, or CWD.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission
on July 30 began offering special Deer
Management Assistance Program (DMAP)
permits for eight Enhanced Surveillance
Units (ESUs) in CWD areas.
The permits, which allow hunters to
take antlerless deer in the 2020-21 hunting
seasons, might still be available. Check
availability and purchase permits online
at The Outdoor Shop or through a licenseissuing agent.
The DMAP units associated with
ESUs are Unit 3468, 3934, 4311, 4312,
4313, 4314, 4315 and 4316. The specific
boundaries of these units, as well as maps,
can be found on the Chronic Wasting
Disease page at www.pgc.pa.gov.
ESUs are small areas within larger
Disease Management Areas. They
surround the spot where a CWD-positive
wild or captive deer was found. By
harvesting deer, within ESUs, then
submitting their heads for CWD testing,
hunters will help the Game Commission
to learn more about the disease in these
areas.
Testing in ESUs is especially critical
because ESUs represent the leading edge
of disease expansion, or at least 5 miles
from any other past CWD detection.
What the Game Commission - with the
help of hunters - intends to determine is
whether those CWD-positive deer were
outliers, meaning the only sick one in
their respective areas, or a clue to a bigger
problem.
The Game Commission's management
goal is to limit CWD to no more than 1
percent of the adult deer in these units.
The Game Commission is aiming to
collect at least 250 to 300 deer heads from
each unit.
Locations of head-collection bins also
can be found on the CWD page at the
Game Commission's website.
47

http://www.pgc.pa.gov http://www.pgc.pa.gov

Pennsylvania Game News - October 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - October 2020