Episode description
An interview with Anna Mitterling MUCC's Wildlife Cooperative Coordinator discussing CWD in Michigan and how the state is dealing with it.
- 3 years with Michigan United Conservation Club
- Helps private land owners get together and work together to manage their property for deer and also for pheasants.
- Helps landowners with deer impact studies
- Worked for the DNR as a student assistant and did a research project on deer cooperatives
- Works with the DNR and part of her position is funded by the DNR
- Worked in the disease lab when the first positive test came in 2008 in Michigan
- Also owns land in an original CWD zone
- Talks about responses by hunters in the CWD zones
- General hunting public doesn't care about CWD until it affects them
- Make sure your informed and educated on CWD
- Only about 40% of the hunters are complying with the mandatory CWD check in the CWD zone.
- All heads are tested for TB but not CWD, only CWD zone heads are tested for CWD
- Looking at the lymph nodes to see if they are abnormal
- If abnormal they are further tested
- Then if positive, they are sent to Ames, Iowa for the gold standard test to confirm a positive.
- Peak of firearm season they are processing over 1300 heads a day!
- 22,000 heads tested this year so far
- Safety gear for the people doing the testing
- How hard is it to get your deer head tested
- Sharing testing results
- Has CWD been here a long time and just now found or is it new?
- Why worry about CWD since the prevalence is so low now?
- The positives Michigan has had, all but one of the deer looked healthy when taken
- The prions have been documented to last over 20 years
- Impact on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan
- What is the long term impact?
- Keeping deer densities low is key to keeping CWD in check
- Does QDMA's current goals work at keeping CWD in check
- Reasons for shooting does to help with this problem
- Where does the money come from for testing?
- What is the best thing you can do besides getting your deer head tested?
- Do road kill deer get tested?
- DNR ran out of test kits and had to wait for more since only one place in the world makes them.
- How do you know how many doe to shoot in your area per season?