The B.C. government found one positive case of chronic wasting disease (CWD) after testing 126 samples from urban deer in Cranbrook and Kimberley.
Water, Land and Resource Stewardship Minister Randene Neill says the low prevalence means B.C. still has an opportunity to get the disease under control.
“We’re in year two or three of CWD in southeast B.C., and numbers out of Alberta and the U.S. show that numbers hover around one per cent or below for about a decade before they shoot up,” said Neill.
“It feels like we’re in that one per cent range right now. It’s up to us as a community and a government to make sure we do everything we can to avoid that spike in increased cases.”
Neill says the community plays a vital role in monitoring and controlling the disease.
“We want to keep those numbers low, and we’re going to do that by doing those special hunts, getting hunters involved, testing every single animal that is removed from this area, whether by hunters or organized culls,” said Neill.
Testers harvested 100 deer in Cranbrook and 26 in Kimberley.
So far, five positive CWD cases have been found since January 2024.
Neill says more funding is on the way to bolster testing efforts, but the province is not ready to share the exact dollar amount yet.
“It is 100 per cent a priority to make sure we keep chronic wasting disease as low as possible for as long as we can,” said Neill.
“We’re also looking to bring in a mobile testing lab. During hunting season last year, we got almost 4,000 samples and because the lab was also testing for avian flu, those samples took four to eight weeks to get back.”
Testing has stopped for now, as deer begin to give birth and raise their fawns, but Neill says the province plans to bring in a mobile testing unit in the fall.
“We didn’t do as good of a job as we should have in organizing those samples and getting them back in an expedited way,” said Neill.
“Now we know what to expect, so we need to do a better job.”
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