DICKINSON COUNTY, Mich. (WZMQ) – Last week, a case of Chronic Wasting Disease was discovered on a deer farm in Osceola County, MI. Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is a progressive and fatal neurological disease that affects different cervid species, including white-tailed deer, elk, and moose.
The disease can be transmitted directly from one animal to another, or indirectly through contaminated environments, with some cases going undetected for years. When a single case of CWD is discovered on a deer farm, with speculation that it’s been spread, the entire herd is killed for testing, essentially shutting down a farm overnight. For around 60 years, the disease has been affecting deer farms across the country, with little to no solution.
“When you’re a deer farmer, it’s an important disease because if you get it, you’re done,” said Dan Harrington, the owner of Wide and High Whitetails of Dickinson County, MI. “So we want to do what we can to breed it out of the deer herd.”
Harrington and his family have raised large deer on their 25 acre farm for the past nine years. In 2021, Wide and High Whitetails began looking for ways to resist the fatal disease. They discovered that CWD Prions found in soil, coming from remains of infected animals such as in saliva, urine or feces, can be greatly reduced by using Humic Acids in their fertilizers.
“Supposedly, the prions that affect the deer and get in the soil are indestructible,” said Harrington. “My son Daniel and I did the first study that located prions in the soil, and we use humic acid to deviate those prions. So now, that isn’t even a fact now.” This has been a great first achievement in the development of their strategic breeding tactics, to eventually have a herd that can resist CWD entirely.
“We did a large study out of Ames, Iowa that’s still ongoing, to prove that we can breed these deer,” said Harrington.
Dan hopes for his farm to become the first in the country to successfully raise a full deer herd, completely resistant to the disease. Eventually reaching the goal of sending them into the wild, to spread these genetics with other deer in the area.
“Some of the states are adopting the fact that ‘hey, we got to start relocating these resistant deer into the wild to get those genetics out there,'” said Harrington. Dan says that at this years United Deer Farmers of Michigan Convention a few weeks ago, he spoke with Michigan representatives who said that the state hopes to introduce a bill to legalize these releases in the near future.
Information about Wide and High Whitetails can be found on their website at wideandhighwhitetails.com.
