Chronic Wasting Disease, also in Norway

Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), also in Norway

For those of you who read Norwegian see here for synopsis of the brief (at the time of writing it is 12-09-2016), yet dramatic, history of CWD in Norway. In short, this spring one reindeer was discovered with CWD during capture for the reindeer monitoring project in Nordfjella. A few weeks later, two moose were found with CWD in another area further North.

This triggered a large surveying effort (underway) of deer in Norway together with the hunters this fall (starting with the reindeer hunt on September 20th). In addition, also the 318 reindeer killed by lightening in Hardangervidda were screened for CWD (all negative). The first results are both positive and negative. It seems that CWD does not occur in the reindeer population at high incidence. Unfortunately, one reindeer shot in the Nordfjella area was found to have CWD, indicating that the one in spring wasn’t an isolated case.

Thus, to date four animals (2 reindeer & 2 moose) have been found with CWD in Norway. The moose hunt is still to start, so in a couple months we will have a much better idea of the full extent of CWD in Norway. It seems, however, that this disease will be a factor for population management in the years to come. This is what you would call a dramatic game changer…