CWD Surveillance Update Region 4

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Cait's Update:

Many of you will be aware of the situation unfolding in Montana with CWD in the northwest part of their state. There are 30+ confirmed cases of CWD in the Libby area in white-tailed deer and recently the first case in a moose in Montana, also in the Libby area. Please see attached press release.

For BC, CWD surveillance for the 2019 season is well underway. The General Order (mandatory submissions in the Kootenay Region management units 4-1 to 4-7) will end on November 30^th, but we need to urge hunters to submit heads until the end of the hunting season and hope to access heads from other sources (i.e. road kills) into the new year. We are grateful for the community support and hunter participation, but we are not there yet. We have submitted a total of 641 samples from the Kootenay Region this fall, but only 401 from the mandatory units along the BC-Montana border. For confidence in a CWD-free status we will need to get more samples. Our target is 1000 heads.

The last sampling session in the Kootenay region resulted in 479 samples submitted for testing. We had a significant number of heads submitted from animals less than a year of age. A reminder that those cannot be tested. See the attached map for spatial distribution of samples. We will have results in 2-3 weeks and will be in touch about those.


Cait

Map: http://nprg.ca/wp-content/uploads/20...019_8x11_L.pdf