Times Observer photo by Josh Cotton Pennsylvania Game Commissioner Kristen Giger discusses a recent deer chronic wasting disease finding in Warren County with the county commissioners. The meeting was held at the Warren County Fairgrounds.

A confirmed case of chronic wasting disease in a deer found on a preserve in Pine Grove Township will impact the hunting landscape this fall.

The Warren County Commissioners heard from Pennsylvania Game Commission Commissioner Kristen Giger as well as the PFC’s Regional Wildlife Management Supervisor Roger Coup on Monday.

The meeting was held at the Warren County Fairgrounds.

The disease is considered highly contagious and develops slowly in the lymph nodes, spinal tissue and brains of deer and similar animals such as reindeer and elk.

Coup explained that the neurological disease is always fatal and that there is no cure and no vaccine.

He called any positive tests a “special concern for us.”

In response, he outlined the creation of DMA 5 — disease management, explaining that it is 211 square miles in size and includes a 3-mile buffer around the area where the positive deer was found where more intensive sampling will be conducted.

The PGC is also selling 412 coupons for hunters in that area with 245 sold. He said those coupons specifically are intended to help the PGC obtain additional samples from the area.

A sampling station is in the works for the PennDOT facility in Starbrick as well as eight head-drop sites where hunters will be able to leave the heads of harvested deer for testing.

“This is new here (but) CWD is not a new disease,” Giger said. “(There is) some very good science that backs up a lot of what we’re doing. (We) really, really, really need hunter participation to be successful.”

She said “even if you don’t care if the deer has CWD, take the time to drop the head in that head bin. The more numbers that we have, the better our data is. … (We) need to work together as hunters, conservatinists, members of the community….”

“We don’t want to find CWD anymore in Warren County,” Coup added.

It will take years of monitoring because officials explained that the incubation period for the disease can be up to two years. Giger said the disease can persist in the soil for years and that deer are very social animals.

“We’ve all heard ‘slow the spread’ more times than we can count,” she said. “When deer get together, that’s (there) it’s going to get spread from animal to animal.”

Symptoms, they outline, include weight loss and excess saliva and deer that appear sick.

Geiger said the deer in Warren County was harvested in December and the test wasn’t completed for several months.

Coup said all remaining deer on the preserve were put down and tested negative but that numerous deer tracks were found outside the fence of the preserve.

They outlined how — as double fences with space in between aren’t required — it’s possible for wild deer and deer on the preserve to have nose to nose contact which could spread the disease from the preserve into the wild population.

Commissioner Ben Kafferlin asked if it’s possible that this case was a false positive.

Coup said a false positive is always possible but said that they “have double confirmations of every case” using the “gold standard” test twice — once here and once in a lab in Colorado.

He explained that they know the infected deer came from another deer farm.

“(We’re) still working on the trace back,” he said. “We’re confident it did not originate in a wild deer, that it came with that deer.”

And what about if nothing is done in response to this positive finding and the disease runs rampant?

“(We could) see a drop in the deer heard,” Coup said, as well as an effect “in the long run (in) the number of people hunting. Hunting is a big boon to the local economy.”

He also outlined environmental impacts and changes that would be brought about in the spaces that deer inhabit.

Coup said there are no cases of people eating infected meat testing positive for the disease but still recommend that people don’t eat it.

“Nobody wants to be the first case,” he said. “Ultimately it’s the hunter’s choice. We’d recommend not eating it.”

He emphasized that the PGC will dispose of the meat for deer that test positive — and provide another tag — if the hunter is uncomfortable keeping it.