The province is looking to collect samples from over 100 deer each in Cranbrook and Kimberley over the winter months in order to determine the prevalence of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in urban deer populations.
Randene Neill, the Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship, confirmed the ministry is working on plans to collect samples and test for the disease within the urban deer populations of both municipalities, given the density of both urban herds.
"We think that those testing numbers will give us a good indication of how much Chronic Wasting Disease there is on those areas and those communities," Neill said, during an interview on Dec. 19.
While hunters in the southeast corner of B.C. are required to submit their harvests for sampling as per hunting regulations, there hasn't yet been much sampling of urban deer populations within East Kootenay communities.
Neill says hunters have been an integral part of the CWD surveillance program, with over 3,300 samples submitted to the province to date 鈥� a large portion of which came from this past hunting season and are currently being tested.
Test results from urban deer samples being collected in the near future should be known by late January or early February, according to Neill.
What happens then will be determined by the experts but an urban deer cull is one potential option if recommended by wildlife biologists.
"I think at this point what we need to do is understand where we are with how many infected deer we get from this sampling of 200 deer over the next couple of months and then I will listen to the science," Neill said. "So if our scientists say that a cull is the best option, then that is something we would look at, if they say it isn't, then that is something we would look at. That is how we intend to move forward.
"At this point, we are not looking at a complete and total cull. We are looking at testing enough animals to get an accurate picture of how many animals have been infected with Chronic Wasting Disease and then look at the next steps."
Advocates with the BC Wildlife Federation have raised concerns about the density of urban deer populations potentially serving as a vector for CWD and have been calling for a cull as well as more resources to manage and respond to the issue.
The province says resources going forward will be informed by its CWD management plan, ongoing monitoring, surveillance, and metrics. The planned budget for the 2024/25 surveillance and management is $716,000, according to a ministry spokesperson.
British Columbia confirmed its first cases of CWD in January this past year; one being a female whitetail deer that was road kill south of Cranbrook, while the other was a male mule deer harvested in the South Country.
Since then, two more deer 鈥� both harvested by hunters near Cranbrook this past fall 鈥� have tested positive.
The B.C. government has set up a management zone and introduced mandatory testing in various management units in the East Kootenay region. The province has also restricted transporting carcasses outside of the management zone and has also increased testing capacity at a lab in Abbotsford to speed up turnaround times.
Based on the number of samples submitted this year, the province acknowledged that additional testing capacity will be needed in the future years and that it is working on plans to ensure it has all operational needs in place for future sampling efforts.
CWD affects cervids, such as deer, moose, elk, and caribou, and is a condition of the central nervous system caused by infectious agents called prions, which kill cells in the brain as they accumulate and lead to neurological disease.
Prions, a type of protein, also accumulate in other tissues and may be shed by the infected animal into water or on plants and bedding through saliva, urine and feces.
It is 100 per cent fatal to wildlife with no known treatment.
However it is not known to affect humans or livestock, although public health guidance recommends that animals with CWD should not be consumed.
