CWD hits southern Colorado
Feb. 04, 2005
Ron Walker gets a nudge and a kiss Thursday from
Boo at his Top Rail Ranch near Penrose. Walker
raised Boo, bottle-feeding the elk as a calf. He named
her Boo because of a boo-boo — a broken leg.
Penrose rancher’s herd could face slaughter by U.S. agency
By PAM ZUBECK THE GAZETTE
PENROSE - Ron Walker swung open a metal gate Thursday to visit his elk herd, which might have to be destroyed after a bull recently tested positive for chronic wasting disease.
Walker was looking for one special animal among the sea of 323 shaggy heads.
Soon, one popped up, trotted to his side, nuzzled his shirt and planted a juicy one on his face.
Walker hopes Boo, a 5-year-old cow he had bottle-fed for three months, can be spared from slaughter if he decides to sell his herd to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The agency would kill the elk, then study them.
“It’s terrible,” he said. “I have 300-plus head of healthy elk here, and they quarantine me?”
He heard the bad news Monday from the Colorado Department of Agriculture: A 4-year-old bull recently bagged by a hunter at Walker’s 2,800-acre hunting ground near Cañon City had tested positive for CWD, which attacks animals’ brains and kills them.
It was the first of 250 elk killed from his hunting and ranching operation that tested positive since the state began mandatory testing in 1998. The discovery shows the disease has moved to southern Colorado.
Although there’s no evidence that chronic wasting disease is a risk to human health, the positive test means Walker will be forced to decide between destroying his herd or having it quarantined for five years. That means he would be barred from selling breeding stock, a crucial part of his business.
The infected bull represents the farthest south the disease has been found in a domestic elk herd in Colorado, said Linh Truong, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Agriculture.
Walker’s is the third recent positive test in a domestic herd, she said.
A mule deer buck tested positive after it was bagged by a hunter Dec. 24 at Fort Carson north of Walker’s Top Rail Ranch, which is five miles east of Penrose.
A few years ago, about 10 ranchers allowed the government to buy their herds for slaughter and testing, Truong said.
“Right now, there’s not a definitive answer of how it spreads, how it originates,” she said.
“It’s definitely one of those things we can’t explain.”
Walker, in the elk business since 1996, said he’ll follow the rules but doesn’t think the government’s policies have done a thing to reveal how the disease spreads, or even whether it does.
“The more we think we know, the less we really know,” he said. “If they look here, they’re going to find it here. If they look in Kansas, Wisconsin, Indiana, South Dakota, they’ll find it there.
“Everybody says they don’t have it, but they do if they start looking,” he said.
Despite all the testing and publicity, the disease has not claimed large numbers of elk, which are overpopulated in several states, including Colorado.
Walker, who started hunting as a boy and bagged his first elk at age 19 near Grand Mesa, hasn’t decided whether he’ll let the government buy him out. At up to $3,000 per head, selling is a losing proposition, because he paid as much as $25,000 each for some of his breeding stock.
He will decide within the next few weeks but already anguishes about it.
“I raised a lot of these animals,” he said. “I’ve laid awake a lot of nights thinking about it. What do you do? It’s a state regulation.”
As for Boo?
Walker hopes to persuade authorities to let him keep her and two other favorites. “It’s not a good feeling,” he said. “I’ll fight for her, for all three of them.”
http://www.gazette.com/display.php?id=1305711
Feb. 04, 2005
Ron Walker gets a nudge and a kiss Thursday from
Boo at his Top Rail Ranch near Penrose. Walker
raised Boo, bottle-feeding the elk as a calf. He named
her Boo because of a boo-boo — a broken leg.
Penrose rancher’s herd could face slaughter by U.S. agency
By PAM ZUBECK THE GAZETTE
PENROSE - Ron Walker swung open a metal gate Thursday to visit his elk herd, which might have to be destroyed after a bull recently tested positive for chronic wasting disease.
Walker was looking for one special animal among the sea of 323 shaggy heads.
Soon, one popped up, trotted to his side, nuzzled his shirt and planted a juicy one on his face.
Walker hopes Boo, a 5-year-old cow he had bottle-fed for three months, can be spared from slaughter if he decides to sell his herd to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The agency would kill the elk, then study them.
“It’s terrible,” he said. “I have 300-plus head of healthy elk here, and they quarantine me?”
He heard the bad news Monday from the Colorado Department of Agriculture: A 4-year-old bull recently bagged by a hunter at Walker’s 2,800-acre hunting ground near Cañon City had tested positive for CWD, which attacks animals’ brains and kills them.
It was the first of 250 elk killed from his hunting and ranching operation that tested positive since the state began mandatory testing in 1998. The discovery shows the disease has moved to southern Colorado.
Although there’s no evidence that chronic wasting disease is a risk to human health, the positive test means Walker will be forced to decide between destroying his herd or having it quarantined for five years. That means he would be barred from selling breeding stock, a crucial part of his business.
The infected bull represents the farthest south the disease has been found in a domestic elk herd in Colorado, said Linh Truong, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Agriculture.
Walker’s is the third recent positive test in a domestic herd, she said.
A mule deer buck tested positive after it was bagged by a hunter Dec. 24 at Fort Carson north of Walker’s Top Rail Ranch, which is five miles east of Penrose.
A few years ago, about 10 ranchers allowed the government to buy their herds for slaughter and testing, Truong said.
“Right now, there’s not a definitive answer of how it spreads, how it originates,” she said.
“It’s definitely one of those things we can’t explain.”
Walker, in the elk business since 1996, said he’ll follow the rules but doesn’t think the government’s policies have done a thing to reveal how the disease spreads, or even whether it does.
“The more we think we know, the less we really know,” he said. “If they look here, they’re going to find it here. If they look in Kansas, Wisconsin, Indiana, South Dakota, they’ll find it there.
“Everybody says they don’t have it, but they do if they start looking,” he said.
Despite all the testing and publicity, the disease has not claimed large numbers of elk, which are overpopulated in several states, including Colorado.
Walker, who started hunting as a boy and bagged his first elk at age 19 near Grand Mesa, hasn’t decided whether he’ll let the government buy him out. At up to $3,000 per head, selling is a losing proposition, because he paid as much as $25,000 each for some of his breeding stock.
He will decide within the next few weeks but already anguishes about it.
“I raised a lot of these animals,” he said. “I’ve laid awake a lot of nights thinking about it. What do you do? It’s a state regulation.”
As for Boo?
Walker hopes to persuade authorities to let him keep her and two other favorites. “It’s not a good feeling,” he said. “I’ll fight for her, for all three of them.”
http://www.gazette.com/display.php?id=1305711
