Articles > CWD Position Statement

Quality Deer Management Association
"Position Statement on Herd Elimination as a CWD Control Strategy"

In areas where chronic wasting disease (CWD) has been discovered in free-ranging white-tailed deer, the Quality Deer Management Association (QDMA) believes a surveillance program should be implemented to accurately define the prevalence rate and geographical extent of the disease.

Once such a program is in place, the QDMA supports herd reduction to levels that:

a) reduce the possibility of transmitting the disease to adjacent uninfected populations, and

b) reduce the potential for disease transfer within existing infected populations, and

c) provide sufficient time for researchers to monitor changes in prevalence rates by sex and age and to devise practical, effective disease containment and elimination strategies.

The QDMA favors CWD management strategies that:

a) acknowledge the active role of hunters and landowners by enabling continued hunting opportunities, and

b) encourage the involvement of hunters and landowners in the decision-making process, and

c) continue our hunting heritage.

The QDMA acknowledges that total herd eradication may appear to be the most effective method to contain and control CWD.

At this time, however, the QDMA considers total herd eradication impossible under most circumstances, unacceptable to many segments of society, and impractical as a long-term CWD management strategy.

-- Adopted April 1, 2004

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CWD Policy Statement - Uplands Branch (QDMA)

The State of Wisconsin's CWD management policy currently sets deer herd population goals at less than 5 deer per square mile in the Disease Eradication Zone and less than 10 deer per square mile in the larger Herd Reduction Zone that encompasses it. The terrrain, habitat, food supply, increasing non-farm rural residential nature of the region, and other factors make these population goals impossible to attain, unacceptable to many segments of the community, and impractical as a long-term CWD management strategy.

Rather than the primary determiner of policy and programs, the Uplands Branch views chronic wasting disease (CWD) as one of many variables to consider in the management of white-tailed deer herds. A realistic herd reduction program (not eradication or near eradication) can further the goal of combating CWD without compromising other management goals and the numerous human dimension values and traditions surrounding deer hunting and land ownership.

"It is time for us to learn caution and restraint
in our power to eradicate wild things."

-- Aldo Leopold, December 5th, 1944