Minnesota DNR calls for tougher deer farm regulations, owing to CWD's threat

State wildlife officials want tough new regulations placed on deer farms to slow the spread of chronic wasting disease (CWD), according to a report filed Tuesday with the Legislature.

The recommendations call for faster repairs on broken fences, sanctions against deer farmers who fail to report deer deaths, no importing of captive deer from states where CWD has been detected and pressure on deer farmers to quickly exit the business if the disease shows up in their herd.

The recommendations follow inspections of 50 deer farms toward the end of last year. According to the report, inspectors found 17 violations of rules designed to keep CWD from spreading inside the industry and outward, to wild deer. Ten of the farms had inadequate fencing, a barrier described in the report as "the last line of defense in keeping farmed deer secure inside the enclosure and keeping wild deer out.''

The report was mandated by lawmakers last summer when the Legislature assigned the Department of Natural Resources to begin joint oversight of captive deer operations along with the Board of Animal Health. A state audit of the board in 2018 found the agency to be cozy with deer farmers and lax in its enforcement of the industry.

The new co-management system has progressed to where both agencies are now plugged into the same data system for tracking farm-to-farm deer movements, animal registrations, inspections and other information. The purpose of concurrent oversight is to better-protect Minnesota's invaluable herd of 1 million whitetail deer from a contagious animal disease that has diminished the health of wild deer and wild elk populations in other states.

According to inspection results described in the report, two of 50 herd owners failed to submit death reports within the required timeline, making disease detection impossible in a system that mandates post-mortem CWD testing to mitigate the risk of spreading the disease. Another herd owner reported a deer death but failed to submit tissue samples for testing, the report said. The 17 violations took place on 15 different farms.

During the joint-agency inspections, staff members "closely evaluated" the potential for farmed and wild deer to interact near fence lines where the disease can spread. At nearly half of the farms, fence line conditions provided "close or direct contact potential between farmed and wild deer,'' the report said. The evidence included tracks, feces, rubs or scrapes by buck deer, or sightings of wild deer near the fence.

The DNR recommended a crackdown in the report that would reduce from 45 days to 14 days the time allowed for herd owners to repair fence deficiencies. The agency said it also wants to reduce the window for reinspection of insecure fences from three months to 30 days.

According to the report, the primary risk factors for the spread of CWD are movements of live deer from farm to farm and movements of brain and spinal column carcass remains by hunters.

In the case of deer farms, "movement of live (deer) through sales and exchanges can cover hundreds of miles,'' the report said. Deer carcasses also can move long distances, from harvest locations to homes. "Both types of movements can contribute to CWD spread through direct contact or environmental contamination,'' the report said.

Carcass movement restrictions already exist for hunters. Now the DNR wants the Legislature to enact statutory rule changes for more stringent record-keeping by deer farmers to better-account for all of their animals. The DNR also called for certain farm-to-farm movement bans, including a prohibition against the importation of deer from any herd originated from a state or province where CWD has been detected in either farmed or wild deer.

In the report, the DNR called for rapid detection of CWD within captive herds, timely slaughter of herds when they become infected by CWD, faster deadlines for herd owners to report deer deaths, and faster deadlines to test the remains. Also, the DNR recommended movement restrictions be placed on any herd if the operator fails to test all dead deer for the disease.

DNR Fish and Wildlife Division Chief Dave Olfelt said the report was jointly produced by the DNR and Board of Animal Health. But the recommendations for new statutory rule changes belong solely to the DNR, he said.

"These are the things we would be pushing for,'' Olfelt said.

Linda Glaser, assistant director of the Board of Animal Health, said the board has been planning for "quite a while" to change rules administratively to tighten CWD controls. The DNR, she said, is more interested than the Board of Animal Health in making statutory changes and in establishing "defined timelines'' for herd owners.

"I don't see that we're so far apart,'' Glaser said. "We're coming from different places but we're all trying to work with CWD.''

Deer farming has been on the decline in Minnesota since at least 2005, when the number of herds was in the range of 400, including captive elk. Since then, the number of herds has dropped to around 150. The animals are raised for a variety of purposes, including commercial production of venison and for the production of deer attractants used by hunters. Another common pursuit of deer farmers is to raise genetically modified monster bucks for fenced-in hunts.