[Jacob-list] FMD enters UK deer population

[Thomas Simmons]

 Anthony Browne, environment correspondent
 Sunday April 22, 2001 The Observer

The foot and mouth virus has passed into Britain's wild deer population,
making  the Government's policy of mass slaughter of farmyard livestock futile.

 There have been several cases of vets clinically identifying the disease
in wild  deer, some of which have died from it. There have also been many reports
from  Devon, Cumbria and Northumberland of deer limping and exhibiting other
unusual  behaviour linked to the disease.

Veterinary experts say it is impossible to vaccinate or cull wild deer and
once  infected they will act as a reservoir for the virus, repeatedly re-infecting
 livestock. It will make it almost impossible for Britain to rid itself of the  virus, until it dies out naturally in wild deer, which could take years.

 Last week a roe deer was found dead at Kirk House Farm near Penrith, which
had  already been confirmed as having foot and mouth in livestock. Local vet
Matt  Coulston, of Frame Swift and Partners, identified lesions on all four feet
and  in its mouth. 'It had signs consistent with foot and mouth disease,' he
told The  Observer. 'There have been loads of people round here reporting dead deer
and  sick deer. People suspect that Maff [the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and
 Food] are ignoring it because it is difficult to deal with.'

 The British Deer Society has been flooded with reports from deer experts
 reporting the animals limping and being covered with lumps. Mike Squire,
 secretary of the society, said: 'We find it difficult to believe that deer
 exposed to the same pastures as infected cattle and sheep have not been
exposed to foot and mouth disease.'

 A Maff spokesman said yesterday that government vets had tested nine deer
for  foot and mouth and none had been found positive: 'So far there have been
no  confirmed cases of foot and mouth in deer.'

 However, the Maff vets use the Elisa test, which was developed on cattle
and  sheep and is not thought to be so effective on deer. Research from Russia
also suggests it is very difficult to test whether deer have been infected with
foot  and mouth from blood samples.

 In 1974 the government Animal Health Institute in Pirbright kept a number
of  deer in proximity to sheep with foot and mouth for two hours in a
controlled  experiment. The scientists found all six native species of deer contracted
the  disease, and several died.

 In an outbreak of foot and mouth in California in 1924, the outbreak spread
rapidly to deer. Slaughtermen culled 22,000 deer in the Stanislav National
Park  and found that, of those, 2,279 were infected.

 Dr John Fletcher, past president of the Veterinary Deer Society, said:
'It's  highly likely the virus has entered the wild deer population - the deer
are in  abundance and graze in close contact with sheep and cattle. Nothing has
been  confirmed, but there is an abundance of anecdotal evidence, and it would
be  quite surprising if it hasn't entered the population.'

 Simon Booth, director of the Deer Inititiative, the government advisory
body on  deer in England, said: 'There have been unconfirmed cases of it appearing
in  deer.'

 Deer experts have been calling on Maff for weeks to conduct a selective
deer cull to ascertain the extent of the disease and to draw up contingency
plans.  However, Maff ignored their warnings until it called an emergency meeting
on  Friday. It is now considering lifting the ban on deer-stalking to provide
the  carcasses for tests.

 The existence of the disease in Britain's 1.5 million wild deer population
 means  the policy of mass slaughter of more than a million farm animals and the
closure  of most of the British countryside has been pointless. Wild deer are so
evasive  and difficult to track down that it is impossible to vaccinate or cull
them.  Shooting at herds of deer will simply cause them to run, spreading the
disease  further.

 The deer population will harbour the disease before building up resistance
and  it eventually dies out. This could take years. Until then the deer will
repeatedly re-infect livestock and, with the disease endemic in Britain, meat
 exports will continue to be banned.

Squire said: 'We're looking at a huge slaughter and cost to the taxpayer
for no  purpose. How do you think the public will react when they know that?'

 Booth said: 'If it's in the deer population, it will mean the mass slaughter
 policy will not work.' Confirm-ation of foot and mouth among deer will
force the  Government to abandon the mass slaughter programme, a move that has been
steadfastly resisted by the National Union of Farmers. 'It will force their hand
 into vaccination,' said Fletcher. http://www.bds.org.uk British Deer
Society 
 See http://www.guardian.co.uk/footandmouth/story/0,7369,476723,00.html


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.pairlist.net/pipermail/jacob-list/attachments/20010423/4d934659/attachment.htm