Washington elk are threatened by Hoof Rot

[jbeaumont21]

Just read this today on the Reflector.  Hopefully it starts to make some noise.  Thanks for writing the article Bruce!

Washington elk are threatened by Hoof Rot

http://www.thereflector.com/opinion/article_a9cd65d4-8053-11e2-ba35-001a4bcf887a.html

Over the past 23 years (since 1990), we have witnessed Hoof Rot increase from one Game Management Unit (GMU) in Pacific County to over 21 GMU’s over 10 counties, affecting thousands of elk in SW Washington.

The Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, (WDFW) report http://wdfw.wa.gov/conservation/health/hoof_rot/ states simply that they do not know what is causing it, nor do they have any plan to contain or treat this now pandemic outbreak. WDFW estimates over 55 percent of all elk in the 10 counties, covering over 3.4 million acres, are affected. WDFW further states that due to lack of funding, they are unable to determine the cause or come up with any plan for treatment of the disease. All this despite the involvement of Washington State University, Colorado State and the WDFW staff. The report also states that they are currently allocating limited funds towards this problem and do not intend to allocate additional resources, despite the devastation to the Washington elk herds.

We feel that at this time, the WDFW is not effectively being proactive in combating or evaluating this outbreak. We further feel, that their lack of action will certainly lead to the continued spread of the disease throughout the west side of the Cascades and potentially south into Oregon.

If you witnessed the pain and suffering of these animals, you would have no doubt that we are being cruel and inhumane by doing nothing. tdn.cm/video-hoof-rot-elk-herd/yougtube_5a573d30-0377-11. If this outbreak was on a domestic farm, the owners would be arrested for animal cruelty.

In addition, sportsmen are being allowed to harvest these diseased animals, told to allow their nose to be their guide. What investigation has been done related to the consumption of diseased animals to assure that they are even safe to eat?

Therefore, I would ask  senators and representatives to lead this investigational effort and encourage the WDFW to make Hoof Rot their number one priority; to immediately allocate all required resources to define the cause and develop a treatment or containment plan for this devastating disease.

Hoof Rot was not witnessed or recorded in the state prior to the 1990s, so what has changed or developed over the past 23 years? We feel an immediate response is necessary to correct this crisis and preserve our elk herds for future generations.

Bruce Barnes

Vancouver

[ICEMAN]

Very sad. How in the heck can you get wildlife to concern themselves about big game issues, when they are so sidetracked by wolf issues, squirrel studies and butterfly watching?  They are not our friends anymore...

[bbarnes]

  March 1 2013, Washington Fish & Wildlife Commission  My name is Bruce Barnes, I am the founder of Mt. St. Helens Rescue, I live in
Vancouver Washington.
I would like to thank the Washington Fish & Wildlife Commission for allowing me to
speak today.
As a citizen, hunter and avid outdoorsman of the State of Washington, I ask the Fish
and Wildlife Commission to delay setting the 2014, Elk Hunting Seasons in all Game
Management Units affected with Hoof Rot.
I base this request on the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlifeʼs
information stating that over 55% of the elk in these areas are infected with the disease.
And the lack of any hard study data, concerning the consumption of diseased meat.
Since the cause of hoof rot is multi-factorial, including, but not limited to, nutrition, loss
of habitat, body condition and hunting pressure (which currently, over 157,000 hunter
days are in these GMUʼs). I feel any setting of seasons to hunt elk in these areas would
be premature, and irresponsible, in the protection of the elk herd resource, as well as to
the publics health and safety.
I further feel that the lack of reporting the disease in the Governors 2012 Trend and
Status report, and no mention of it in the 2012 Hunting regulations, was miss leading
and has created a lack of the publics trust. Raising questions about your abilities to
manage our fish and wildlife resources. I wonder what other diseases or concerns that
you are not reporting to the Governor, or the public.
I request that you take what ever action is needed to contain, treat and cure this now
pandemic outbreak.
Thank you for listening,
Bruce Barnes Mark Smith
Mt St Helens Rescue Friends of Mt. St. Helens
barnes.b@comcast.net ecoparkman@mac.com
360-513-3874 360-749-4050
March 1 2013, Washington Fish & Wildlife Commission Mg every hunter in the state to do

[bbarnes]

 Watch the video on CVTV television from the  Clark County Board of Health (02-27-13).This will show hunters how concerned you should, be about hunting these elk.

[jbeaumont21]

Watch the video on CVTV television from the  Clark County Board of Health (02-27-13).This will show hunters how concerned you should, be about hunting these elk.

Here is a link to the video Bruce.

http://www.cityofvancouver.us/cvtv/cvtvarchive2/Clark_County_Board_of_Health/2013_Events/02-27-13/2_Comments_from_the_Public.mp4

[HntnFsh]

   Thank you for bringing this meeting to our attention. I was impressed with the way this was handled. I would also like to thank all of you that are involved in helping to bring this situation to the forefront. I have seen hoof rot spreading like wildfire for many many years. It seems to me like the Clark county Board of health and others would like to hold WDFWs feet to the fire. I love it. So many great points brought up. I hope they can contact their peers in the other counties to have them join them in this.

   A couple things that I have thought about and noticed over the years are. A lot of people think it has to do with the elk using wet or soggy ground. I doubt that is the problem. But may help carry the problem. They have lived in that environment since they have been around. The biggest Coincidence, well maybe it isnt a coincedence. Is that I have noticed that it seems like hoof rot started relatively quickly after the timber companies started massive sprayings of herbicides to clean clear cuts of underbrush so that their trees would grow faster and with less competition. They also started very large fertiliziation campaigns about the same time. I remember seeing many  landings with 100s of the large bags of fertilizer on them. The bags that held several hundred pounds of product. I'm having a senior moment and cant remember what they are called.

I'm not educated in this field at all. So this is a guess on my behalf. But I think that ther could be a good possibility that the elk arent getting the type of forage that they used to. In the quantities that they used to. And that they could be lacking in some sort of nutrient that should be in their regular diet. I do remember hearing comments about the possible lack of copper,selenium etc. I think they are on the right track with that.

  It would be great to see headway made on this disaster before our elk herds are wiped out.

Thanks again to all of you that are putting forth the time and effort to push this ahead.

[dawn2dusk]

 

[jbeaumont21]

The doctor in the video raised the question about which came first the chicken or the egg meaning what comes first with the hoof rot, the infection taking hold because of an already damaged hoof or if the infection is what's causing the damaged hoof.

 I'm not an expert but from some of the videos I have seen of entire elk herds limping around I would say that the infection is whats causing the hoof rot. It would be quite a coincidence if an entire herd suddenly all hurt their hooves at the same time and then got an infection from their wounds.

Maybe I am misunderstanding what he said? Its almost as if the so called experts are so completely out of touch with what's really happening to our elk.  Would be nice if they got off their butts and actually got out into the woods to see the elk and maybe get a better understanding of the problem.

Either way I am glad to see our County's Board of Health taking a proactive approach.  Thank you Bruce for your work and involvement.

[hughjorgan]

Careful what you ask for, likely that the wdfw solution would be to introduce wolves to make your herds healthy again because every one knows they kill the sick and weak