DNR expects good buck season
 |
The DNR predicts the two-week buck season that starts Monday will be good if the weather remains mild. |
November 20, 2009 ·
West Virginia buck season opens Monday and the Division of Natural Resources expects about 300,000 hunters over the next two weeks, but hunters in Hampshire County will have to take extra care because of a fatal disease.
Four years ago chronic
wasting disease, or transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, was found in some
of the Hampshire County deer population. So far the DNR has identified 45 cases.
“It’s a neurological disease
that appears to be confined to those members of the deer family,” Paul
Johansen, DNR assistant game
management chief, said. “Elk and deer and moose have been found to be
susceptible.”
Chronic wasting disease has
been found in only two eastern states so far, West Virginia and New York. Johansen said the DNR’s goal is to keep the disease from spreading to
other counties.
The DNR
created a containment zone in one area of Hampshire County
where special rules apply. Hunters have to remove the bones of deer that test
positive for chronic wasting disease before transporting the meat out of the
county, and they’re not allowed to feed or bait deer.
“Any time you concentrate
animals around an artificial food source like a pile of corn or whatever that
tends to elevate the risk factor for transmitting the disease from one animal
to another,” Johansen said.
There’s no evidence so far
that people can get chronic wasting disease but both the Centers for Disease
Control and the World Health Organization recommend not consuming meat from
animals that test positive for it.
Johansen predicts the
two-week buck season that starts Monday will be good if the weather remains
mild.
Johansen said the number of
licensed hunters has remained steady for the past two years with many of those
licenses going to out of state residents.
“We’re probably the fifth
largest state in terms of non resident license sales,” Johansen said. “We
probably have somewhere around 30,000 to 35,000 non resident hunters coming in
to take advantage of our deer season.”
Hunting gives local
economies a boost. The DNR
estimates the overall impact at about $250,000.
“So deer hunting does, no
pun intended, mean big bucks,” Johansen said.
“Clearly there are some
small businesses, some mom and pop stores and hotels and that sort of thing
that, I’m sure, depend very heavily upon deer season for their financial well
being and for the health of their businesses.”