Wolves possible allies in wasting disease fight
DENVER (AP) — Researchers are looking to wolves to help control the spread of chronic wasting disease in deer and elk, a fatal brain malady some biologists fear will invade Yellowstone National Park in the next few years.
Wolves’ uncanny ability to spot vulnerable animals may make them the best natural control for the disease, since wolves could kill off sick animals, researchers say.
Wasting disease makes its victims distracted and unwary as it eats tiny holes in their brains, the Denver Post reported.
“Wolves show up and say, ‘Let’s see what you’ve got,”‘ said National Park Service biologist Douglas Smith, who helped lead the program that returned wolves to Yellowstone in 1995 and 1996. “And if you don’t have it, they laser in on you like a fighter pilot. The things they pick up on are incredibly subtle.”
While the theory is still unproven, but some say it is worth factoring in to the debate as chronic wasting disease continues its creep north toward Yellowstone’s famed game herds.
Wasting disease was detected in northern Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin this year for the first time, and some Wyoming biologists fear CWD will move into the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem in the next year or two.
“Every idea should get a fair hearing and I think disease management is a fair question for a biologist to ask,” said Russell George, director of the Colorado Division of Wildlife.
No one has been able to study whether wolves single out CWD-infected animals because the range of predator and disease have never overlapped.
But over the next few years, that will likely change as both the disease and wolves spread out.
David Mech, a biologist with the United States Geologic Survey who is considered the world’s top wolf expert, cautioned that until wolves and wasting disease actually interact, theories about wolves controlling the spread of the disease are just speculation.
Wasting disease was first identified in a Fort Collins wildlife research station in 1967, spreading into southeast Wyoming by the 1980s. Last year it was discovered as far away as Wisconsin.
Unlike other predators like mountain lions and coyotes, wolves constantly test potential prey, looking for weakness. This hunting style, Smith said, seems perfectly tailored to removing sick animals.
“Wolves are probably the single best way to stop the spread of CWD,” he said. “Chronic wasting disease causes animals to act weird. Wolves kill animals like that.”
University of Calgary professor Valerius Geist, an expert on deer and elk, said wolves can remove infected individuals and clean up carcasses that could transmit the disease.
Geist and Princeton University biologist Andrew Dobson theorize that killing off the wolf allowed CWD to take hold in the first place.
A federal predator control program in the 1920s eliminated the last prairie wolves in the region, according to Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity.
Using wolves to manage the disease could be tricky though.
“Emotions against wolves are so strong that I’m not sure this potential benefit, which I agree might be there, would sway the opinions of many folks,” retired Wyoming Game and Fish veterinarian Tom Thorne said. “I think it would be a long, long time before people are used to wolves enough to admit they might be doing a bit of good.”