Pending deer slaughter
Robert Williams, an 83-year-old deer breeder in Kaufman County is in two legal battles with two agencies, Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC) over a quarantine order, and Texas Parks and Wildlife over a ruling by TPWD that Williams’ 500 whitetails at his breeding facility must be depopulated (killed) to prevent the herd from passing chronic wasting disease to deer in outlying regions of Kaufman County.
Williams’ 1,500 acres in surrounded by an 8-foot deer-proof fence, and the 68-acre breeding facility, which contains the 500 deer, is separately high fenced. At present, TPWD is under a temporary restraining order by the state court of appeals, with no ending date, until the court reviews a similar appeal put in place by the trial court over TPWD’s threat to kill the deer.
The entire fiasco hinges around CWD, purported to be a detriment to cervids (deer, elk, moose, etc.), although not a single deer has ever knowingly died from CWD in the United States. The “disease” was found in a mule deer at a research facility at Colorado State in 1967. Wild deer were found to have the malady in Wisconsin in 2002, and a mule deer near El Paso showed signs of the disease in 2012. Recent research shows the malady was scrapie.
CWD variant of scrapie
Some $10 million has been spent on IHC and ELISA tests at the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory at Texas A&M, tests that appear to be worthless. Western blot tests, which show the similarities of CWD and scrapie have never been used.
Recent research from USDA Agricultural Research Service in Ames, Iowa, has shown CWD is nothing more than a variant of scrapie, a sheep disease that has been around for 300 years, and has now been found in cervids. TPWD and TAHC have refused to recognize the USDA findings of the molecular profile similarities between scrapie and CWD in sheep, whitetails and mule deer. It doesn’t fit their agenda.
Moreover, there is evidence from Western blot tests that scrapie affects only a few rare deer that are genetically susceptible. In essence, scrapie does not have the biological properties to be deleterious to Texas deer herds. However, TPWD has used the malady to disrupt or eliminate deer breeders. The scheme has worked. Once, there were 2,000 breeders and now there are 800.
TAHC authority questioned
TPWD despises deer breeders. Thousands of whitetails in breeder facilities have been killed in the last 10 years, and possibly, illegally. According to Williams’ attorney, recent reviews of Texas agriculture laws show TAHC has no authority over deer in Texas. TAHC’s authority lies with domestic livestock and foul, exotic livestock and foul, but does not include white-tailed and mule deer.
As many as 200 of Williams’ deer are bred does, which will start fawning in early summer. It’s unlikely TPWD will go to the breeding facility on private property and destroy the pregnant and nursing does behind the high fence, killing the unborn fawns and leaving the young, live fawns to starve. TPWD can’t afford to do such a thing, based on a 20-year-old false hypothesis about CWD.The current research on scrapie is right off the burner. Watch for continuing news as this deer killing episode continues.
