The provincial Ministry of Environment is continuing to monitor for chronic wasting disease and is looking to the hunters of the province to assist. To do this, they are asking for hunters to submit samples from the animals.
Ruth Aschim is a fish and wildlife health biologist with the Ministry of Environment. She noted there are two ways hunters can submit the samples from deer, elk and moose. The first is the full head itself, which can be dropped off at any of the collection points in the province, and the second is by submitting the sample from the head itself.
“They’ll go into the back of the head and collect the obex and the lymph nodes from the animal and they can send those in,” explained Aschim of the process. She added both methods of having the samples does have the benefits for the people working in the province’s Wildlife Health Lab.
When the hunters collect the samples themselves, it can speed up the processing time, so results can get back quicker to the hunter, while when the full head is tested, they can check for other diseases, such as bovine tuberculosis and SARS-CoV-2.
The process while the samples are being tested can take up to 6-8 weeks, and during the process, it is advised to not eat the meat. Aschim said it is a personal level of risk for the hunters and their families.
So what to do if the sample does come back positive?
“If they do get a positive result back, we have on our saskatchewan.ca/cwd website, a list of landfills that are approved and will accept CWD contaminated carcasses, as well as we have four Ministry of Environment carcass disposal bins across the province in Prince Albert, Pelly, Moosomin and Melville,” Aschim stated.
Last hunting season, nine cases of chronic wasting disease were detected through the program.