Rog's Rod & Nimrod

Chronic Waste Disease is an insidious easily transmissible and always fatal disease that can afflict all members of the deer family including elk, moose, whitetails, and mule deer. CWD is a serious problem in South Dakota. A Custer State Park 2017-2018 sampling revealed that 15% of the elk and 25% of the deer had CWD. The most affected part of our state’s deer herd lies in the southwest. We know that CWD is carried in saliva, urine, and feces, but we know little else about the disease.

Our state is in the process of developing a CWD plan. Other than knowing that CWD diseased carcasses can be brought to licensed landfills for burial, and that roadkill will be tested for the presence of CWD, little else has been revealed. I do know that CWD has shown up in captive herds. I suspect that like Wisconsin, testing for CWD will be made available. Otherwise, how are we to know whether or not a deer we took is affected?

I am slightly disappointed with our SDGF&P Department for not offering more CWD open house sessions. Hopefully these will come as more of the plan is revealed. In the recent press release, it was revealed that a number of states have banned the sale and use of commercial deer urine that is collected in captive herds. I suggested this in my column a few years back, and I was commended for my interest, but nothing was done.

Our Mt. Horeb Wisconsin home is in the epi-center of Wisconsin’s CWD affected deer. Some years back the Wisconsin DNR tried to eradicate the local deer by giving landowners an ample supply of tags for distribution. It didn’t work as in no time the deer figured it out.

Whatever South Dakota does, it will cost money as testing brain tissue is expensive, and establishing sufficient sample collection sites will run into money. In the meantime, there are things we can do. If you see a deer that appears to be sick or emaciated, put it down. Then contact your local conservation officer for instructions. You might be told to cut off the head for testing, and/or to take the carcass to a licensed landfill. If I’m wrong in these recommendations, I’ll hear about it, and I’ll pass it on to you. Whatever we do, we need to get on it.

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I’ve wanted to say this for a long time. I’d like to believe that an interest in fishing or hunting might make life more interesting to at least some of those who find it necessary to alter reality. Hunting and fishing provides me with all the “highs” I’ll ever need. Looking forward to Saskatchewan’s Wollaston Lake in June with good friends finds me grinning to myself with thoughts of big northern pike and lake trout, not to mention the Arctic grayling.

But I don’t need to go as far as Saskatchewan. The same is true every time I head to the river with rod in hand or my favorite deer stand with rifle in hand. Thinking about a round of golf with my good friend Jerry brings on that same anticipation. I know I’m preaching to the choir today about the joys of fishing or a round of golf, but there’s something I just don’t understand, and that’s the need for some people to get their “high” by distorting reality. Life doesn’t need drug induced highs.

I certainly realize that we must face stress, illness, and even the deaths of loved ones, but that’s part of life. We know that marijuana is the gateway drug. Why are states legalizing the stuff? I realize that making it legal might put an end to some illicit trafficking, but coming down hard on dealers and manufacturers would do the same. Five years of prison time in a not so comfortable cell would shut things down in a hurry. I dread the day our SD law makers even consider going the same route as Colorado.

My highs from hunting, fishing, family, friends, good books, and satisfying work may not work for everyone, but it will certainly work for some. It did years ago, and it will today.

Note that the new deer hunt applications will be available soon, and the first deadline will be June 14th……quite a bit earlier than in the past. See you next week.