Use of deer urine as hunting lure could spread CWD
Posted:
PHILADELPHIA - Thousands of hunters who took to Pennsylvania's woods and fields for the archery antlered deer season opener last Saturday may have unintentionally poisoned the state's deer herd.
Walt Cottrell sounded the alarm loud and clear on Monday morning during the opening session of the two-day quarterly meetings of the Pennsylvania Game Commission at the Holiday Inn near the Sports Complex.
Cottrell, the Wildlife Veterinarian for the Pennsylvania Game Commission, gave a presentation on Chronic Wasting Disease, a disease that affects members of the Cervidae family, which includes deer and elk.
The always fatal disease of the nervous system causes wasting of the body and decreases lifespan in cervids, and has been found as close to the Pennsylvania border as Hampshire County in West Virginia, which is 25 miles away, and Oneida County in New York, which is 80 miles from the border.
No cases of CWD have been identified in Pennsylvania, but the disease has been found in 15 states and two Canadian provinces. One of the ways it is spread is through deer urine, which archery deer hunters and some firearms deer hunters use as both a lure and masking scent.
Saskatchewan has already banned urine lures and nine states are considering it,'' Cottrell told the members of the commission.
Commissioner Thomas E. Boop of Lycoming County, stating that nine out
of 10 archery hunters in Pennsylvania use deer urine as a lure, asked
if there is a way for manufacturers to certify that urine is CWD free,
but Cottrell said there is not.
''I think a lot of hunters haven't thought about this,'' said Boop, who
asked that the commission issue a warning about using deer urine as
soon as possible.
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