Illinois aiming for a sustainable approach to managing chronic wasting disease

Chris Jacques could've meant many things in 2024 when he said, "We're living with a new reality, whether we like it or not."

What the wildlife disease program manager for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources meant was chronic wasting disease in white-tailed deer in Illinois.

Illinois had its first confirmed CWD case in Boone County in November 2002. Now CWD is confirmed in 21 counties, all in northern Illinois.

CWD was kept fairly level for nearly two decades, but, in recent years, a notable uptrend began, including about 18 percent in FY2024.

So the IDNR is making its first major change for CWD management, a five-year pilot project from 2025-2030, to "evaluate the efficacy of sustainable CWD management in endemic counties characterized by relatively low disease prevalence and newly emerging (i.e., leading edge) CWD counties in northern Illinois."

"We're not going to get rid of the disease, so we have to figure out how to live with it sustainability," Jacques said Thursday at a CWD presentation at Des Plaines State Fish and Wildlife Area in Wilmington.

In low prevalence counties with less than 5% CWD (Carroll, DeKalb, Jo Daviess, Kane, Kankakee, Lee, Livingston, Ogle, Will, Winnebago), CWD-zone specific removal goals will be eliminated, alternative surveillance options will be explored, sustained sharpshooting will be used along with mandatory check stations.

Alternative options include such things as Clover traps, collapsible wire cages (Illinois will try 10 this winter), and drop-nets, which can capture multiple deer (will not be used in 2025). Fees paid to vendors (butchers, taxidermists, deer processors) for heads will increase from $5 to $10 and for lymph nodes (essential for testing for CWD) from $10 to $25. Volunteer sampling kits through an online system are being considered. (By now, I think most hunters know how lymph nodes are extracted.)

In high-prevalence counties with more than 5% CWD, (Boone, Grundy, Kendall, LaSalle, McHenry, Stephenson), sharpshooting will be suspended, the hope is hunters will step up with increased harvest through more permits and check stations remain mandatory.

"Hunters have been saying for years, `Let us do it,' " Jacques said. "Let's see who keeps prevalence rates lower."

In counties with newly detected or emerging distribution of CWD (Bureau, Ford, Iroquois, Marshall, Putnam, Whiteside), increased hunter harvest and mandatory check stations (as needed) will be used "to reduce deer densities and assess spatial distribution of CWD, respectively, over the duration of the Pilot."

If CWD is detected outside the current endemic area (basically the southern two-thirds of Illinois), hunter harvest will be used exclusively and no sharpshooting during the Pilot.

"Idea is hold the line at 5 percent as sustainable," Jacques said. "A lot of this feels predicated on hunters stepping up to increase harvest."

After the five-year pilot, data will be analyzed to decide what works.

"Our aim is to protect and maintain a healthy deer herd," Jacques said. "We're trying to provide good hunting for the public."

Details are in the Illinois Chronic Wasting Disease: 2023-2024 Surveillance and Management Report.

Wild things

Squirrels are, yes, squirreling away acorns like hoarders, a sure sign of fall. . . . John Vukmirovich noticed sandhill cranes on the move Sunday in the southwest suburbs.

Stray cast

Chicago baseball 2024 in review: North, losing a 5-pound smallmouth bass at the net; South, rod and reel in the drink on the first cast without a backup.