Mad Elk Disease Outbreak Alarms Canadians

Elk slaughtered to halt mad cow-like disease
By Jeffrey Jones

CALGARY, Dec 18 (Reuters) - About 1,500 domesticated elk on ranches in
western Canada have been slaughtered to stop the spread of an illness
closely related to the mad cow disease afflicting livestock in Europe,
officials said on Monday.

The elk, from half a dozen farms in the province of Saskatchewan, were
killed over the past six months after 14 were found to be infected with
the debilitating illness called chronic wasting disease. It has been
dubbed "mad elk" disease.

The outbreak of the disease, for which there is no cure, is believed to
have originated with one elk imported to a Saskatchewan farm from South
Dakota several years ago, said Brian Peart, senior staff veterinarian
with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which ordered the slaughter.

"It stayed pretty much on that farm until probably 1995, and all the
animals that we have found so far have come from that source farm,"
Peart said.

There have been no cases of the protein-borne illness reported outside
Saskatchewan, he said.

Chronic wasting disease is related to mad cow disease, or bovine
spongiform encephalopathy, the brain-wasting illness that has hit the
European livestock industry. Both are spread by prions, mysterious
proteins that attack part of the animal's brain by killing cells.

Symptoms in elk include the inability to swallow properly, which can
result in food being lodged in the lungs, as well as disorientation and
severe weight loss. Eventually, they die of starvation.

Canada's first reported case of chronic wasting disease was in 1974,
when a mule deer at Toronto's zoo was diagnosed.

The affliction is only believed to affect domesticated elk and deer, and
Peart said no cases have been found in the wild. There is no evidence of
a human form of the disease. The fatal human form of mad cow is
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

Elk ranching is a burgeoning industry in Canada, generating annual
revenues of more than C$1 billion ($660 million). Elk are raised for
their venison, a substitute for beef.

They are also prized for the velvet on young antlers, which is used in
herbal remedies around the world, especially Asia, where derivatives
have been used as aphrodisiacs for centuries.

There are about 54,000 domesticated elk across Canada, nearly 40 percent
of them in Saskatchewan.

Game farmers are to get about C$4,000 per elk slaughtered under the
program -- about half their value. But industry officials said they
agreed with the mass killing, despite the financial hit.

"If we did not take care of this, the impact would be much greater,"
Serge Buy, executive director of the Canadian Cervid Council, the
industry's umbrella group, told Reuters. "The industry is responsible.
We've had an issue, we've dealt with the issue and the issue has been
solved. The animals are dead now."

In Germany on Monday, officials found a second cow in two weeks infected
with the brain-wasting mad cow disease, and said they feared more cases
would be detected. Mad cow disease, first detected in England in the
mid-1990s, has spread to other countries in Europe, including France and
Spain.

Peart said government agencies and farming groups were stepping up
efforts to eradicate the elk disease in Canada.

"A regulation is currently going through the process to make chronic
wasting disease a reportable disease, and producers are expected to
notify both their own practicing veterinarian and their federal
veterinarian if an animal has the signs," he said.