The Coming Deer and Elk Herd Apocalyse

         ARKANSAS

                                           By

                      Richard Mason  

 The Coming Deer and Elk Herd Apocalypse

                                 Or

 How to control Chronic Wasting Disease, bring back our quail, and stop the feral hog population explosion.

Chronic Wasting Disease—CWD— will decimate Arkansas's deer and elk herd, if we don't take action to control it. This disease has mushroomed over the last decade, and if it continues to spread, it will sweep through the state reducing deer herds by an astronomical number. That’s a fact. It's a disease that is fatal to deer and elk, and there is no cure.

As far as we know, it hasn't spread to humans—but don't bring me any deer sausage this year. Actually, since Arkansas is ranked near the top of the fattest states in the country, it might be a decade before we recognize that it has spread to humans. You know, we just might figure old Bubba was on that Marie Osborn diet.

Of course, we can scratch our heads and wonder why it's sweeping through our deer and elk herds, and I’m sure there are several guesses as to why, but I believe most folks are barking up the wrong tree. It’s actually an easy question to answer. It’s our fault. Yes, we caused the epidemic of CWD.

The Game and Fish Commission is trying to come up with a plan to stop the spread of the disease, but outside of killing all the deer and elk in North Arkansas, they don't have a plan that would work. Actually, there is a possible way to eliminate most of the sick deer and elk, and slow the spread of the disease, but it’s an out-of-the-box solution. To understand the problem, we must consider some facts: The first and most obvious fact is that CWD has probably been around for centuries, but over the past 100 years it has slowly increased and spread. Consider the infected deer and elk for a moment: They are the weakest and most susceptible animals that would be taken by a predator. When the ecosystems are in balance, the predators remove the sickest and weakest of the herd. That's why the disease was kept under control for centuries, and that's why we are to blame for the epidemic. Yes, we are to blame because we killed off all the predators that were keeping the disease in check.

Of course, when I suggest we restore the predators to our ecosystem, it is always met with a blizzard of opposition. Why?

"The wolves, mountain lions, and bears are dangerous! I don’t want little Jonnie gobbled up by a pack of wolves or a danged panther!"

That my friend is an unsupported fear. More people are killed on Arkansas highways every weekend than have been killed by all the wolves and cougars in North America in the last century. We live in a state full of poisonous snakes, but how many people died from snakebite in Arkansas last year? Zero! Actually, we already have cougars in the state. One was killed last year in southeast Arkansas and game cameras all over the state have dozens of sighting. I have personally talked with several individuals in the El Dorado area about numerous mountain lion sightings. They report almost monthly sighting west of El Dorado around Morning Star Road, and several confirmed sightings of a black “panther” (cougar) east of El Dorado.

Last week a tagged mountain lion from Colorado was spotted in New England. It had traveled 2000 miles from Colorado. Mountain Lions are moving from the Black Hills of South Dakota and along the Arkansas River from Colorado into Arkansas. So except for the wolves, the predators are already here, but in numbers too small to do any good. So let's get over our irrational fear. We need to understand that restocking and increasing the predators in our state is far better than killing off thousands of healthy deer as we try to eliminate the sick ones.

Wolf packs, mountain lions, and even bobcats and bears will, through natural selection, kill a much higher percentage of sick deer than as the Game and Fish Commission proposes, which is simply; “…to reduce the density of deer in the infected area.” That proposal will do more harm than good. As they attempt to eliminate the diseased deer, they will kill thousands of healthy deer. Only after a deer has been killed can you tell if it has CWD. In my opinion, that is not the way to go.

The randomly killing of thousands of deer will just reduce the number of deer in the state. The percentage of infected deer will stay the same. That proposal by the Game and Fish Commission can never solve the problem. For every infected deer or elk that is eliminated, ten or more non-infected ones will be killed. Can you even imagine hundreds of thousands of deer that will be slaughtered needlessly, if we tried to eliminate CWD in that manner?

Their plan to try and kill off the infected deer and elk will result in a much smaller herds, and will be a giant step back to the 50s, when sighting a deer was a big deal, and what’s even worst, the percentages of that smaller herd that have CWD won’t change.

CWD took decades to flourish in our state, and it will take that long to get it under control. Yes, we are suffering the consequences that come from upsetting the balance of nature, and to reverse what we created, it will take decades, but at least we'll be going in the right direction by restocking predators.

Actually, the restocking predators will give a huge boast to our quail population and help control the out-of-control feral hog population. There are estimates of as many as two million feral hogs in the state and they are wreaking havoc on the wildlife population. If we can reduce the feral hog, raccoon, and armadillo population that devour quail eggs, our quail population will soar. Forget habitat; we have plenty of suitable quail habitat, but no quail.

If we would just understand what Chief Seattle said centuries ago, “Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.” Chief Seattle.

Fifty years into the future, our great grandchildren will look back on the way wildlife was managed today, much as we look back at the destruction of so many species in the 19th century. They will be appalled at the way certain species were targeted for elimination. What justification can we legitimately give that would allow the unregulated killing of numerous species that are important in balancing our environment?

If, in North Arkansas, we restock 150 mountain lions and 15 wolf packs, (Alaska has plenty to send us—and no, they don’t have CWD in their deer herds—I wonder why?) remove coyotes, bobcats, and bears from the list of hunted animals, we will see a steady decrease in infected deer, and our natural ecosystems will start to come in balance.

When we realize that removing predators from Arkansas, has had dire consequences, then maybe our Game and Fish Commission that will seek to balance the ecosystem in our state. Do we have the foresight to restore our ecosystem, or will we continue to use ineffective wildlife management practices that have no chance of success? Maybe we need some women on the Commission—who will think outside-the-box.