Why Saskatchewan is ending its chronic wasting disease program

Saskatchewan is ending a program that tests for chronic wasting disease in deer and other animals. And the province says it is ending the program because of low uptake from hunters. According to the government, the disease has been found in 63 of Saskatchewan's 83 wildlife zones since it started collecting this data. Ryan Brooke is a professor in the Department of Animal and Poultry Science at the University of Saskatchewan. And Ryan joins us live. Good afternoon. Hello, Peter. So, Ryan, what does or what did the CWD program do exactly? Well, they collected heads from hunters and tested them for chronic wasting disease. And this is vital information to understand what we call the prevalence, how much of the disease is out there. And at least equally important, not only how much, but where is it? So we know, for example, in the southwest around Cabry, about 50 percent of the mule deer now have it. So if you harvest two mule deer, probably one has chronic wasting, and less so in other areas, but it has been increasing dramatically. So really vital data to understand the disease and its spread. Yeah, right. How do we know numbers are that high if we aren't getting samples from hunters? Sorry to say, as many as we used to. Yeah, this has been a challenge, but I mean, these are the kinds of challenges you run into with long-term programs, is that, you know, uptake may go down, but you don't cancel a program because you're having challenges. You fix the program and keep it going. This is vital information, and I am just absolutely shocked that they decided to cancel this. Let's be really clear and say this is a really, really dumb decision, and I do believe that the Minister of Environment, Darlene Roden, needs to be replaced for this. This is a complete lack of leadership here, and I am just absolutely shocked and hunters are shocked because there was zero consultation uh as a scientist i was not consulted hunters are saying no none of the hunting groups were consulted on this so this decision fell out of the sky right in the middle of the deer hunting season so they didn't even wait till uh the end of the season to announce it so this is just really ridiculous that's a good point in terms of the timing for sure so what what do you think they should be doing instead of canceling it entirely i think you have to keep it going you have to fix issues if you have a program that's collecting vital data. It's a no-brainer. I think anybody could see why maintaining a program like this is absolutely essential. You just can't make any decisions if you don't have data. It was just, you know, like when COVID was such a big deal in 2020 and going forward, having the data about who had it and where was vital to making decisions. And so it's the same with chronic wasting. So we just, this program has to be revitalized and renewed and have to work with hunters to get more heads in. And hunters have been really great in all kinds of ways in contributing to wildlife management, and they will participate. It's just a matter of addressing, I think, some legitimate concerns. And when you do these things over the long term, it's not easy, but I think it is absolutely vital. And I think hunters are generally agreeing, and I saw Wildlife Federation has shared their frustration and absolute shock that this occurred as well.