When
I first heard of the CWD study at Shenandoah National Park back in
2012, the first thought that entered my mind was that this was just the
preliminary step toward a drastic herd reduction in the park. As it
turns out it seems my worst fears are going to be more than realized,
but for some time park officials seemed to divert attention away from
what they really intended to do and to downplay the severity of it.
In a News Release dated December 5, 2013
SNP officials announced that their staff had completed a planning
process for a Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) Detection and Assessment
Plan. This followed the park receiving a Finding of No Significant
Impact (FONSI) decision. The purpose of the CWD plan at that point was
to establish a framework in which SNP officials could determine whether
CWD was present in the deer population within the park and if was found
to determine the number of infected animals and their location in the
park. This would all come together in a management plan to deal with
CWD in the park and to co-operate with the Virginia Department of Game
and Inland Fisheries in detecting the disease, etc.
The news release went on to list four options for the detection and/or assessment of CWD within the park.,
1. Opportunistic sampling (mostly testing road-killed deer)
2. Targeted surveillance(looking for and sampling sick/emaciated deer)
3. Enhanced live-testing (live-sampling healthy appearing)
4. Lethal removal
At
this point the lethal removal option appeared to be downplayed as the
third paragraph of the news letter states, "Sampling will occur in areas
of the park within 30 miles of a known CWD case. If needed to achieve a
statistically valid sample size for the detection or assessment of CWD,
the park may lethally sample up to 150 deer over a three year period
for detection or approximately 70 over a two year period to determine
prevalence and distribution. The park will only lethally remove deer for
sample after exhausting all other non-lethal sampling methods (e.g.,
enhanced opportunistic (mostly road-kill), enhanced live-testing, and
hunter-harvest/road-kill testing by the VDGIF within the surveillance
area).The park will primarily sample and remove deer near the closest
developed areas (e.g. Dickey Ridge, Mathews Arm, Skyland,and Big
Meadows). Deer will be sampled from developed areas because these areas
have higher deer densities and are, therefore, at greater risk of CWD
introduction and spread .Lethal removal sampling would occur during
periods of low visitation."
Pay special attention to this sentence from the paragraph above,
"The park will only lethally remove deer for sample after exhausting all other non-lethal sampling methods". If
someone read this in a positive frame of mind, it tended to relieve
their concerns as it gave the impression that lethal removal was
extremely unlikely to happen or be minor in nature if it did
, but if we jump forward to late 2014 and read the
SNP CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE DETECTION AND ASSESSMENT PLAN AMENDMENT of October 2014
it becomes clear that they did employ lethal sampling methods on park
deer or at least they certainly seem to say that they did.
If one goes to page 21 and looks under the heading,
"Impacts of plan with addition of proposed response actions"
they state, "As previously analyzed (NPS 2012a), the current detection
and assessment actions have some adverse impacts on visitor use and
experience when visitors are unable to access certain areas of the park
because area closures are required for safety reasons during lethal
removal for sampling". They go on to point out on page 22 that "The
addition of the proposed response actions may require
additional area closures to conduct density reductions but these
are not expected to noticeably change the level of impact on
visitors beyond what was previously analyzed for detection and
assessment actions, alone." Even if one reads the document quite closely
there are times that you are not sure if they are writing about
something that has already happened or if they are stating that
something that is to happen in the future will result in little
difference in visitor experience, over something that has already been
planned for the future, but not yet implemented--it is that vague. .
The
conclusion on page 23 does a good job of summing it up; however, and
seems to leave little doubt that that they have already removed deer by
lethal means when beginning with the second sentence they say "The
adverse impacts of area closures for
density reductions would not be noticeably different than what
visitors currently experience when areas are closed for lethal
removals for detection and assessment. Closures for density
reductions may be somewhat longer or at different times of the year,
but the overall adverse impacts would not change from existing,
either individually or cumulatively".
Concerning negative impacts, the conclusion states, "The main difference as a result of
adding response actions is decreased opportunities for visitors to
regularly view and photograph deer in favored locations such as Big
Meadows. Deer would still be present but in smaller numbers, on a
less regular basis, and may be less tolerant of human presence. This
would probably reduce the enjoyment of visitors who come to the park
specifically to see deer in Big Meadows and other favorite viewing
areas. It goes on to justify the herd reductions by pointing out that, "This would not reduce the overall
visitor experience of the park because deer densities in these areas
would be more similar to natural deer densities that occur throughout
the park, which is in keeping with the natural conditions and
experience that the park was established to conserve and promote."
The conclusion sections ends with, " Public outreach and information may promote greater understanding of
the need for the response actions, alleviating some of the adverse
impacts".
Thoughts From Blog Readers
Wildlife biologist, Kirk, commented on my last post, . " If your interest is in the conservation of the whitetail herd, let's
agree that the current density of WT's on NPS property from Shenandoah
to Gettysburg is somewhere between 20 and 50 TIMES the threshold for
"high likelihood" of transfer of CWD as it's practiced in much tougher,
sparse terrain out west. Not 20%. 2000%! And that number is likely
pretty low.
I'm not arguing this as a hunter (Lord knows that
hunting on NPS ground is a debacle at best), but as an actual wildlife
biologist. Photography is important. Visitors (and fee payers) are
important. But there's absolutely nothing in anyone's action plan to
reasonably react to a 50% or 80% herd die off."
(I
assume from this that he is meaning that a 50% or 80% mortality rate
from CWD is possible rather than the lower rates usually reported in
states like Colorado are because of the much higher deer density in
SNP.)
Kirk goes on to say, "There's no "non
harsh" way through this, is what I'm proposing. Thanks for bringing up
the issue, I hadn't heard about this, and I'm well versed in NPS'
typical aversion to lethal management of anything, even exotic 30 foot
long pythons."
Kirk also made a follow-up comment-" Also keep in mind that all of these actions occur in context of
multiple, often competing, management plans for the NPS units. NPS has
been burned badly in court numerous times for not aggressively acting to
take precautions to preserve designated habitats and species from
"forsseable" threats. Whitetails are at a high density on NPS lands, we
all agree on that, and guess what, they don't eat the invasive plants."
A
Virginia wildlife photographer, Larry W. Brown, who is very familiar
with SNP said, "To state that this is a bad situation for the SNP
whitetails would be a
major understatement. The ignorance of the SNP wildlife management
officials to continue on with these herd reduction plans makes no sense
whatsoever. There have been 7 known cases of CWD in that county since
2009, so if CWD was as bad as they make it out to be, wouldn't the deer
populations in that area have already suffered? And have already spread
into SNP? Since 2002, over 7,600 deer in Virginia have been tested for
CWD. The Va DGIF has diagnosed ONLY 7 positive cases of CWD in Virginia.
The statistics speak for themselves.
Another Virginia
wildlife photographer, Jim Fields, who I first met on A Sunday summer
morning in Big Meadows back in the film photography day,s chimed in
with a very relevant comment, " SNP is using CWD as a scare tactic to
convince the unknowing public
that an 80% cull is needed in Big meadows. If CWD was a valid concern
the parks efforts would focused at the North Entrance of the Park nearer
to the CWD positive specimens. As Larry mentioned Virginia does not
have mass numbers of deer killing over from CWD. There has only been 7
CWD positive deer found to date and none of these were in SNP.
As
you know in the Amended plan there is no mention of herd management
with consideration given to keeping genetically strong specimens or
proper buck to doe ratios to produce quality bucks, does, and fawns for
future generations. This is purely a kill plan to eliminate mass deer
numbers specifically in Big Meadows.
Additionally If you visit
SNP you will find no information regarding this subject displayed for
the public at any of the park facilities. I purposely went in the Byrd
visitor center yesterday I was handed a copy of the press release from
behind the counter only after I inquired about the deer reduction in BM.
There was no copies of the amended plan available at the center."
Another wildlife enthusiast, Kaleen, said, " The Shenandoah National Park situation is heartbreaking. I have been
going to the park for over 40 years and have loved and photographed the
deer and other animals all that time. The park's plan is insane and
illogical. There is not enough evidence to support such drastic action,
and the only way to completely prevent this disease in the future would
be to eliminate all the deer, which the current park plan would almost
do. The park has ruined wildlife photography, to say nothing of the
suffering, evident in photos, of the collared deer. The poor deer do
not stand a chance, and this planned nighttime shooting will lead to
poor shots and injured and suffering deer. The whole plan is senseless
and will do nothing to prevent the disease from ever reaching the park,
which is not likely anyway. The park officials seem to have lost their
minds. They should take a lesson from Pennsylvania's game management."
My Thoughts
When
we sift to the bottom of all of this it boils down to the fact that
they are willing to sacrifice 80% of the deer herd at the popular
whitetail areas such as Big Meadows because, according to Larry Brown , 7
deer have tested positive for CWD in the State of Virginia and this is
confirmed by
The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries Website.
Remember
they intend to Shoot 80% of the Big Meadows herd because of SEVEN (7)
positive deer in the entire state of Virginia, although it does appear
that they need to find a positive deer within the 5 mile trigger
distance from the park or within the park itself to begin the 80%
reduction. According to a chart on page 8 this means the removal of
130-150 deer from the Big Meadows area to match the populations density
of surrounding areas, yet already reports are surfacing of experienced
outdoors people seeing only a few deer in the Big Meadows Area. Does
this mean that a substantial number of deer have already been removed
from the Big Meadows area to provide the samples needed for lethal CWD
testing if enough specimens were not available from non-lethal methods?
Of
course the fear is that CWD will spread and become established
resulting in a permanent herd reduction if nothing is done, but even the
most optimistic official in my experience will not contend that CWD
response plans as implemented by any conservation or federal agency has
any chance of stopping the disease--only in slowing the spread of it.
Remember-To
slow the spread of the disease down they plan to shoot up to 80% or the
herd to prevent a loss that in a worst case scenario MAY reach 80% of
the herd, but would more likely top around 30% and this is assuming that
the disease becomes widely established in the park, which is by no
means a given.
It is always easy to criticize, but
much harder to be responsible for a plan of action, so it is fair to ask
what would you do if you were in charge of the situation?
If
I were responsible for the management of the SNP whitetail herd I would
manage the herd much as it was before the inception of the CWD study of
2012. Only visibly sick or injured animals would be removed from the
herd and there would be no preemptive shooting. Expenditure of funds
and efforts would be geared toward finding a cure for the disease if
possible. It may be that this is something like the gypsy moth was with
the oak forests and it will run its' course regardless of efforts
applied to stopping it.
As it stands, The SNP plan is
currently being implemented and future amendments will likely meet with
approval. At this writing it appears that the outstanding whitetail
viewing and photography at SNP are over for my lifetime and perhaps for
all time although it is to be hoped that at some point in the future
responsible people will shake their head at the way war was declared on
the whitetail deer in the name of saving them from CWD.
A special thanks to those who submitted comments on the November
12th post "Herd Reduction Looms For Shenandoah National Park Whitetails, which are featured in today's post.
Originally
Published at Pennsylvania Wildlife Photographer by Willard Hill.
