Wildlife Veterinary Epidemiology Laboratory
Illinois Natural History Survey • Prairie Research Institute
By Joey He | Undergraduate majoring in integrative biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
CHAMPAIGN, lL. – Joey He, an undergrad student member of the Wildlife Veterinary Epidemiology Laboratory (WVEL) at the Illinois Natural History Survey, narrates her experience participating in the collaborative effort of the WVEL along with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) and USDA-WS to collect COVID samples from hunter-harvested white-tailed deer.
By Jameson Mori, Nelda A. Rivera, Jan Novakofski and Nohra E. Mateus-Pinilla
CHAMPAIGN, IL – Understanding the role of diseases on reproduction is essential for safeguarding the reproductive health of wildlife populations. Furthermore, it enables informed decision-making, effective interventions, and targeted approaches to support reproductive health. In the article Impact of CWD on Fetal Growth and Pregnancy Rates in Illinois White-tailed Deer, Mori et al. summarize the latest research and their results related to the effect of CWD on Illinois white-tailed deer reproductive health.
For the complete story, please visit the Illinois Outdoor Journal, here.
CHAMPAIGN, IL – In a recent study, 38 years of historical data were used to analyze Illinois’s spatial and temporal changes in Hemorrhagic disease (HD) affecting wild white-tailed deer.
“The results of Dorak et al. (2022) corroborate the importance of expanding surveillance efforts, collecting precise geographic locations during outbreaks, and the vital role of virus isolation in helping wildlife agencies understand and predict HD outbreaks and better inform the public.”
Read the whole story at the Outdoor Illinois Wildlife Journal, here.
“Some advantages of including the ELISA test are that ELISA uses fresh tissue, eliminating exposure to Formaldehyde for those taking and processing the samples. Furthermore, fresh samples can be shipped frozen and stored in less expensive containers (e.g., Whirl-Pak bags). Thus, they require less storage space and, therefore, reduce shipping costs. In addition, ELISA typically has a 4-day turnaround for results depending on the capacity of the diagnostic laboratory.”
CHAMPAIGN, IL – During the fiscal year 2021, the IDNR surveillance management program—in partnership with Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory and the University of Missouri Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory—, improved the turnaround time of results of CWD by using a combination of ELISA test (for large-scale hunter harvest surveillance) and Immunohistochemistry (for “special permit surveillance” from IDNR and “suspect deer surveillance”).
Read the whole story at the Outdoor Illinois Wildlife Journal, here.
In 2015, around 6 million deer were harvested during the US’s legal hunting season, which is the same number as the total estimated deer population in the US and Canada combined in 1948 (Barlett 1949; QDMA, 2017). With the increasing white-tailed deer population in the Midwest region, carrying capacity—the resource availability to sustain a species population without causing environmental degradation of the land—is critical to the deer health. As it turns out, female pregnancy rates and reproductive characteristics are associated with the number of resources in the habitat available to the white-tailed deer population (Roseberry and Woolf, 1998).
The study, Reproductive Characteristics of Female White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in the Midwestern USA (Green et al. 2017), helps us understand the tight and complicated relationships between female white-tailed deer and their fetuses. The evide
Continue reading “One Female Deer Can Have Multiple Fetuses, How Many and Why Should We Care?”
SPRINGFIELD, IL – In response to rising positivity rates of COVID-19 and in an effort to help ensure the health and safety of Illinois hunters and Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) staff, the IDNR today announced the closure of all Deer Check Stations during the upcoming firearm deer hunting seasons, slated for Nov. 20-22 and Dec. 3-6, 2020. For more information please visit the IDNR website, here.
CWD SAMPLING VENDORS: The following locations are serving as CWD sampling stations, taking samples from entire deer or deer heads from October 1, 2020 thru Jan. 17, 2021 [CWD Sampling Vendors]
CWD HEAD DROP-OFF STATIONS: The following sites are serving as self-serve drop-off sites where hunters can fill out a sample submission card and leave adult deer heads [CWD Head Drop-off stations]
Here is a complete list of CWD Sampling Locations.
For more information about the Hunt Illinois program, visit the website here.
Test results will be posted by hunter phone number on the IDNR website at: http://www.dnr.illinois.gov/programs/CWD/Pages/TestResults.aspx
“They found that some regions of Illinois had somewhat higher proportions of genetically protected deer. This genetic advantage does not ensure that a deer is entirely resistant to CWD. Still, the two types of protective DNA sequences could elicit a high level of protection, suggesting that specific areas may see a lower prevalence of CWD in the population due to this genetic advantage.”
CHAMPAIGN, IL – When talking about infectious diseases, are there advantages or disadvantages associated with our genes? And how does this translate to prion diseases? In this article, the authors describe how by examining the Prion protein gen, researchers have been able to identify protective DNA sequences, with potential genetic advantage to CWD in some populations of Illinois white-tailed deer.
Read the whole story at the Outdoor Illinois Wildlife Journal, here.
“It may be tempting to feed deer, especially in the winter, when you think it is more difficult for a deer to find food, but a deer’s digestion and metabolism become well adapted to the food naturally available to them. Occasionally feeding deer foods that they are not used to can change their metabolism, making it harder to process their natural food and causing them to burn essential fat faster. It can actually lead to starvation instead of helping.”
CHAMPAIGN, IL – From infectious diseases transmitted among animals (and that could in some cases affect humans), to changes in natural behavior that may cause fatal accidents; there are multiple reasons why not to feed wildlife. If you care for them, you will be interested in reading the article entitled “The Damaging Effect of Feeding Wildlife”. In this article, the authors used deer as an example of the negative effect of the humans that feed them.
Read the whole story at the Outdoor Illinois Wildlife Journal, here.
“Myths surrounding chronic wasting disease (CWD) abound among wildlife enthusiasts and in misinformed corners of the internet. If you believe the headlines, these so-called “zombie deer” are poised to take over. This article dispels rumors and gives you the need-to-know facts about what CWD is and how you can help manage it.”
“The most valuable management tool the state has is our
hunters’ collaboration. Hunters contribute to the identification of
infected areas, removal of deer in these areas, and to decreasing the
deer population density on a scale and with a disease-management
focus that is not otherwise possible with large carnivores alone.”
Zombie Deer in Illinois – Shannon Callahan [pdf]
This article originally appeared in the Illinois Audubon Society’s quarterly magazine, available to members through annual membership. See illinoisaudubon.org for more information.
“Participation by landowners and hunters in Illinois’ CWD management efforts demonstrates their commitment to protect the health of the deer herd and the public’s natural resource.”
CHAMPAIGN, IL – Illinois sustains a nationally recognized CWD management program based on collaborative efforts between citizens and wildlife professionals. This integrated approach facilitates adaptable processes to control CWD while benefiting the hunting community and citizens of Illinois. The commitment to management and control of CWD should be sustained in order to allow scientific knowledge to advance and continue to develop additional strategies to manage this disease.”
Read the whole story at the Outdoor Illinois Wildlife Journal, here.