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Under the Canopy
On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, former Minister of Natural Resources, Jerry Ouellette takes you along on the journey to see the places and meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and Under The Canopy.
Under the Canopy
Episode 145: What Ticks And Parasites Are Doing To Moose
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Your dog is your best buddy, so tick season hits differently when the prices jump and the risks feel real. We start with a listener-driven problem: how to protect our dogs from ticks and Lyme disease without getting gouged, including why some owners are ordering the exact same branded tick medication from Australia for far less than local monthly pricing. From there, the conversation widens into the bigger question we all face outdoors: how do you judge risk when nature does not come with labels?
Former MNR biologist Bruce Ranta joins us to unpack what hunters are seeing in the field, starting with a moose that showed “sores” and white spots throughout the heart and organs. We talk parasites, what those cysts can be, why the safest move is often to walk away from heavily affected meat, and why organ advisories like cadmium in liver and kidneys matter more as animals age. Bruce also explains moose ticks, how infestations lead to hair loss and winter stress, and why a long cold winter can actually knock tick numbers back.
Then we take on Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), the “zombie deer” illness that drives so much debate. We break down what CWD is, how it may spread through contact and contaminated soil, why testing is difficult, and why eradication-style responses leave hunters angry. We round out with brain worm, hydatid cyst precautions, bear-meat safety, rabies management, and how predator control and trapping shape bird and small game survival. If you care about wildlife disease, hunting in Ontario, and safe wild game meat, this one is for you. Subscribe, share this with a hunting partner, and leave a review with your biggest question about ticks or CWD.
Network Intros And Show Setup
SPEAKER_02I'm your host, Steve Nitswiki, and you'll find out about that and a whole lot more on the outdoor channel radio network's newest podcast, The Fraysable Legend. This podcast will be more than that. Every week on The First of the Legend, I'm going to introduce you to a ton of great people. Share their stories of our trials, tribulations, and inspirations. Learn and have plenty of lives along the way.
SPEAKER_00And we both decided one day we were going to be on television doing efficient showing.
SPEAKER_08My hands get sore a little bit when I'm reeling in on those past in the summertime, but that's mighty for more efficient than it was punchy.
SPEAKER_02You so confidently said, hey Pat, have you ever eaten a drink? Find diaries of a lodge owner now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
Listener Thanks And A Car Nightmare
Tick Season Worries For Dogs
Buying Tick Medication From Australia
Mystery Sores In A Moose
SPEAKER_03As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Oulette, and I was honored to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as Chaga, a tree conch, with centuries of medicinal applications used by indigenous peoples all over the globe. After nearly a decade of harvest, use, testimonials, and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession. And I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show is about. My pursuit of the strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy Podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and under the canopy. So join me today for another great episode, and hopefully we can inspire a few more people to live their lives under the canopy. Okay, uh first of all, we want to thank all the uh listeners all around the world, as usual, you know, Canada, the States, et cetera, et cetera, Switzerland, Ghana, uh, Saudi Arabia, the Caribbean, you name it. We appreciate you listening to us. And if you have any questions, um let us know. And actually, today's show is one of those questions that uh we're gonna be talking about in a little bit, which I think you'll find interesting. I know uh I'm looking forward to it. But I gotta tell you, I'm having one of those days. And I got a a uh uh uh Ford Explorer, and I'm driving down the 401, and I mentioned this before, and everything seizes up on me. And I mean it's like when it came solid, it's like driving with your car in park and you can't move the steering wheel because apparently these these um Fords um have their electric steering. And when they go, they seize completely. And oh my god, I gotta tell you, it was a nightmare to get in. So I had it to a couple of shops, got it in, and um I got uh uh Doug and then over to Phil. Doug said, look, the only places that can do it is is Phil, or you can take it to the dealer. Well, I so I take it up to Phil, and Phil's like, uh, I've never seen this before. This is really weird. You know, it uh it comes up power steering, but when you click on it, it says transmission. So it was something unusual. And for those, uh everybody's got their their mechanics the best, and they all know it all, et cetera, et cetera. Well, Phil's one of those guys when you're talking to him, he's not looking at you, he's looking in the air because he's looking at at schematics and he's he's talking, walking through the schematics while he's talking to you. And a great guy, uh I used to work in the automotive industry, so at one point I used to know all the mechanics in Oshawa. And Phil is just one of those guys that when the dealers have a problem, they go see Phil, and Phil takes care of their electronics guys. Anyway, so Phil says, look, got to go to the dealer, get it into the dealer, and forty two hundred dollars later, I'm taking it out of there, and it's just like, you know, I looked under the hood, there's no place to put power steering. Lo and behold, I find out it's electric power steering, and what a nightmare. I had to get it towed over, and it took three tow trucks because, oh, we can't get that, and we can't do this, and anyway, so finally got it over there, and then pick it up, get out of the dealership, and drive over the first little bump, you know, in a little bit of a covert or you hit a uh railroad tracks, and it's just like an extra thing, like your wheel's gonna fall off. So I call them up right away. I go, hey, something not happening there. Well, surprise, surprise, oh, we'll get in as soon as we can, which is uh let me see, it wasn't their fault. I had issues that I had to deal with. Uh so I got it in uh one, two, three, four, five, five days later. And surprise, surprise, uh, they won another like two grand or just under two grand. And I'm like, what? Yes, well, he had to use a torch on it, and it uh kind of uh, you know, with uh the rubber bushings, uh well anyways, not a happy camper. And so I got prices from them. Their cost on the parts was$339.99 for my cost on the parts. When I called the parts places around, cost me$89.99 for the same parts. You think I'm getting them to take care of it to get any more little surprises like that? So surprise, surprise, not anyway. So I had to get that off my chest because it was I just had this all happened just before coming in and recording. And uh, of course, I'm not a happy camper. But it's that time of year again where the ticks are out. And everybody knows uh Chocolate Lab Gunner. I've had quite a few people show up, and I'll tell you what, anybody continues to show up at the uh the Saturday for May in Lindsay and mentions Gunner, just tell me my dog's name, and I will give you a free package of Chagate. The regular Chagat I will have set aside. You come, you mention that, and I will provide that. Not only that, but uh starting well, by the time this is on, if you come on Tuesdays to to Halliburton, I'll do the same in Halliburton, but uh just for the month of May in Halliburton and May in Lindsay, Saturday's in Lindsay, and uh you come see me and I'll give you a free package of tea. Just because I'm uh just because uh somebody's sticking it to me, I'm not gonna do the same to everybody else. We'll be nice. So it's tick season, and of course, you know, I had um uh the um Dr. Uh Sason on uh who's a naturopathic vet. And look Gunner's my best friend, my bride and joy, and I think my guest will uh concur with me in regards to uh how our dogs uh and how we treat them and and how much we uh enjoy their company and hopefully they enjoy ours as much. But this tick medication that uh you get from the vets, uh it's like, oh my God, where's this price? And it's just like and now that most of the vets in Ontario, if hadn't heard, if you didn't see that um special on TV about how most of the uh veterinics are being bought out corporately. Well, the tick medication is just like unbelievable price-wise. It's like, well, I can't remember it was around$40 or more because of the size of the dog, and I get Josh's tick medication as well as Gunner's. Um, and Benny's quite a bit smaller, so it's around 40 bucks uh a month. So somebody in our dog group was saying that uh, oh yeah, they get theirs from Australia. Well, mark this down, folks. I just put in an order with Pets Megastore in Australia, did it online, and got the exact same medication, the same name, the same company. Now I'm not paying$40 plus tax and everything else. I'm paying about$16 uh for the same stuff coming from Pets Megastore, and everybody seems to be uh doing this because the word's getting around, and I'm giving those people who are listeners check it out. Once it comes in, now I chose the slow route because I had enough of the medication to last me another month and a half, so I'm hoping that it'll take a month and a half before it to get here. But once it gets here, I'll let you know exactly to make sure that everything is. But everything else, and the people who've gotten it who were getting it last year are telling me exactly exact same stuff, same company, same brand, same everything, just to get it from Australia. And Pets Megastore is the one that I found. That uh and the price is a heck of a lot cheaper. So we picked up uh quite a bit of of that to last a year, and and I know uh we get out and Willie was out uh this morning and Rocky was out running the other day and a lot of other dogs, so I picked up enough that if any of the dog people that I hang with need some, then we'll be more than happy to accommodate to some extent. But anyway, so with the ticks out there and Lyme disease, and I gotta tell you, I just get concerned with it, that uh we do what we can and I give him a bath, and I gotta go out and uh see uh Dr. Sasong in regards to having um him um coming out or and talking to him. Um it's uh actually uh uh Dr. Hyatt is his last name. Um Dr. Hyatt and talk to him about uh alternatives. And maybe we'll see what we can do about uh potentially getting some more interesting naturopathic methods to work with our pets because uh they are our friends, and I gotta tell you, they're my uh Gunner's my best buddy. But with all the ticks and stuff like that and everything else going on out there, and I mentioned that I had Pete and Pete, you can listen to the uh Pete's discussion about uh what happened with with him, Pete's a Moose Hunter. And anyways, uh the details, we've got it recorded for you to listen to Pete. But now we have former MR biologist extraordinaire Bruce Ranta to talk about uh some of these diseases that are out there in a lot of nature. Uh welcome back to the program, Bruce. Bruce has been on a couple times. Hi, Jerry. How are you today?
SPEAKER_04I understand you're uh a little tick. What year is your truck, by the way?
SPEAKER_03Oh, it's a 2011. And I gotta tell you, so glad you asked, uh, because I didn't mention it. But so I checked and there was a recall for this specific issue on the years of the vehicles from 2011 to 2013, I think it was. Uh, but it's factory specific. And mine didn't come from the factory that had the problem. But uh so I called Ford Canada boat, and they said, well, if you keep your receipts and they change it so it includes all the others, you can get a refund back, which would be nice. But yes, so we're tech. Thanks for bringing it up. So Bruce, now Pete's issue was uh Pete's a moose hunter, and they'd taken uh a moose up um Lak Sul away. And uh when they opened it up, there was all kind of um he called them sores. They were in his heart, they were on the organs, they were on the inside of the body cavity, they were everywhere. And they didn't know what to do, and nobody up there could give them any insight. And with your experience and working with the ministry up that way, um what can you kind of uh give us some insight of what this potentially could be and how harmful is it uh for people to consume stuff like that?
SPEAKER_04Well, a couple things. First, uh uh diseases and parasites, I know a bit about them, but uh by I'm by no means uh expert at that. I'm more trained as a habitat ecologist. Uh that being aside, uh certainly I've had to deal with uh diseases and parasites. So as a as I said, I know a little bit about it, but I'm not uh by any stretch of the imagination an expert. And of course, if you someone describes me something, it's very difficult to make a determination of what it is they're talking about with a vague description of uh, say, like you just said, like sores. Um but if it's a moose and it's got uh issues and people are saying uh it's it was everywhere, uh the most common uh issue or the most common parasite or disease that I would say it is is something called uh is caused by a thing called Tania crabii or muscle sisterosis, and it's a tapeworm, and it's uh often found with cysts in the heart of the moose, and all through the if it's a bad infestation, there's these little cysts, and they look like well, they're little white spots, but they can, you know, can they can fester and they can be a uh uh cause cause redness around the site that they're infested, and they're often all through the flesh, and it can be pretty uh uh pretty ugly, but it's not really yeah, it's not really uh uh transmissible to man as far as uh uh is known to this, but because in a heavily parasitized moose, and that's not that uncommon in uh some cases to come across these, so it's not as if this is a once in a million sort of occurrence, it's fairly common. By that I mean every once in a while these show up all across northern Ontario. Um it's uh usually it's recommended. Really don't eat it. If nothing more, it's just uh uh for aesthetic reasons, you get all these fists all through the uh meat. So that's probably what it it is, and uh it's moose and other animals, they become parasitized by feeding on vegetation contaminated with the eggs of this. And it's the eggs come from the intestine of infected uh wolves for the most part. So it's uh like many, like many of these uh uh diseases that are found in deer and moose, they're have a very complex life cycle where they go through uh uh different animals and different kinds of animals uh before the the stage of the disease is visible or manifests itself in the end host. So there, as I said, I don't know how people have the time and effort to figure all these things out, and they have over time though, uh and uh they're they're very uh strange, in my opinion. Though these are very strange things that uh are on out there, but there they are, and they're uh uh something that as a hunter or a consumer of meat you have to be sort of aware of. But that's what I would think that it's this thing called uh Taina Cravii. I'm not even sort certain that that's how it's pronounced, but it's a tapeworm, and that's likely what it was.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and you know, uh Bruce, um uh because you you do some writing for uh Outdoor Magazine, and uh these guys they're up near what Ear Falls, uh Sioux Lookout, and uh by the time they're finished, I mean, so you got your Moose Bull tag, which is I don't even know how much that$200,$250 just for the tag, plus your license, plus the draw fee, you know. And by the time you end up paying for everything, you're uh the way these guys go and they they contribute to the local economy, you're looking at a couple of grand probably per person in order to go and do what they do. And you get half a dozen guys up there, that's like$12,000 for the local economy, and that's only one crew. Um so there's a considerable amount of outlay in order to participate in that activity. And it's heavily monitored by the ministry, right, to ensure that it's a sustainable harvest and it's not uh problematic in reducing the numbers. You want to make sure that there's levels there for future generation and so that disease doesn't spread through. But yeah, there's a considerable amount of outlay for these guys and end up uh they left it there up uh with Sue Lookout for the locals up there that and told them, you know, they gave up their tag because they had to to give up that bull tag in order to be able to to um um to to to harvest that moose in the first place. But so there's a considerable amount of economic stimulus when the the uh these people, these uh groups go up to these areas. And I think that you know you want to make sure that uh like you're saying, you shouldn't be consumed. And apparently this one was just filled, and just like you said, the white spots on it uh sounds exactly what it is that uh cause concern. But have had you heard about or have you ever seen one like that? I haven't personally known.
SPEAKER_04It's not as if I've examined uh a ton of uh moose, though. I mean, I've obviously examined and looked at all the moose that uh I've personally uh harvested and been in groups where we harvested. But some so them, you know, that's a a few couple of uh few dozen moose, but that's not a huge sample size. And uh the ones I've seen, I've never found anything uh untowards in them. So I've been I've been a lucky moose harvester.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the only other issue that I've ever heard with uh moose, now they say don't consume the the um the internal organs because of uh cadmium, and that's uh what's that in the liver and kidneys? That's correct. And are you familiar with uh the reasons why how does cadmium build up in the liver and kidneys? Is that just natural in the environment?
SPEAKER_04It's just from consuming the vegetation uh uh because it's in the environments in the soil, and vegetation picks it up and it's accumulated so as if it has tiny amounts in the vegetation, animals being uh moose being a herbivore, it accumulates uh in the liver and the kidneys over time. So generally uh they're saying that if you shoot a uh like a calf, moose, or a fawn, deer, generally speaking, the there's hasn't had enough time to accumulate to levels that are of concern in humans. But as the at the older the animal gets, the more, the higher the toxicity level is. So it's just recommended that you don't eat it.
Moose Ticks And Winter Survival
SPEAKER_03Right. Right. And the the only other incident with moose that I recall somebody telling me a story about was that they had uh harvested a moose that was just completely covered with ticks. And there was basically virtually no hair apparently on this moose because it was all covered in ticks. And when they took it into a ministry check-in station, they were told uh that uh by the people that they checked in with that they wouldn't eat that moose and didn't suggest they did because uh there was so many ticks on this moose that it just they could had never seen anything like that before. I'd never heard of anything like that either. Have you?
SPEAKER_04Oh, moose ticks are uh pretty common. Uh generally in the fall during the harvest season, they're it's not a big an issue. They just becomes worse and worse as uh uh winter wears on. And what it is, I mean, they get they pick the ticks up in the fall as little larval moose ticks, and uh there certainly can be quite a few of them. Uh it just the infestation as the moose ticks sit on the moose, they get bigger and bigger and bigger, and they scratch the moose. The moose scratches them to get them off. Moose aren't uh uh they're not self groomers, so they don't know how to groom themselves with ticks. And maybe when you have hundred thousand or more of them on, it's uh that's quite a few. But deer and elk, for example, they get ticks on them too. But what for whatever reason, those animals. Deer and uh elk are self-groomed. So they pick the ticks off with their mouths and spit them off or eat them or do whatever. But uh moose uh they don't do that. What they do do is as the ticks uh get bigger and bigger by feeding on uh feasting on the moose, uh moose start rubbing uh themselves because it I guess it itches like crazy. And uh the bad itching causes them to uh scrape basically they they rub and scrape their uh hair off. So by late uh winter, it's not unusual to see uh uh most moose in an area with a heavy tick infestation to have a you know a third to a half to three-quarters of uh the hair off the body uh gone, especially around the neck and the front legs and along the sides. So in fact, ticks uh gets so bad that they're one of the leading causes of uh a moose population collapse in uh in North America. Uh it's not uh not as well publicized as I think it should be. Like we had in this area of northwestern Ontario, one time on the Allno Peninsula, which is uh about a thousand square kilometer wildlife management unit, had one of the highest moose densities in the province of Ontario. And over a period of uh less than two years, primarily because of moose ticks, but also uh brain worm, which we can talk about later, the moose population completely collapsed. And within about three years, there were absolutely no moose left on the All No Peninsula. Zero. None, completely gone. And uh there's been similar outbreaks I've read about in Alberta and Saskatchewan, uh, where moose tick infestations were the primary cause behind a uh a collapse in the moose population. So ticks obviously are uh are a big thing, and these aren't wood ticks, these are moose ticks. Um there's all kinds of different species of uh uh ticks out there. But the ones that you're you were talking about earlier with your dogs, those are mostly wood ticks. But these are moose ticks and they they're on on moose, but they're uh they're a big problem for moose populations, especially when the moose population uh gets to high levels, like uh half a moose per square kilometer or something like that. Then then it's a big issue.
SPEAKER_03Well, it's too bad we don't have any oxpeckers or anything, any birds like that that are known uh oxpeckers are in Africa that uh clean the ticks off uh ungulates and big game in Africa that uh would do the same thing here.
SPEAKER_04Uh to uh prevent populations of ticks, moose ticks from getting out of hand is if you have like we have in northern Ontario this year, is a winter that just drags on and on. Because what happens is the moose ticks uh they're they drop off the moose in late winter, early spring. And they're they by then the the ticks have uh mated uh on the on the moose, and they are full of eggs, the females, and they drop off into, and if they drop off into the snow, uh a couple of things happen. One is the snow, uh if it's cold enough and it's all snow everywhere, the moose tick freeze to death and die. But of course, the other thing is they fall off into the snow, and uh ravens especially come along and tick and eat eat eat them and get rid of them. So if you have a late winter like we've had this year, it really does a number on uh uh moose tick ticks because they don't have a chance uh near as good a chance of surviving and reproducing. So the moose tick population uh winds up collapsing. So the it's it when you have a series of real mild winters and an early end to winter, that's when the tick population can get out of control. Well, and now while that may be okay for a white-tailed deer, because winter is a big killer of deer, it's really hard on the moose. So a hard winter, uh it's not intuitive, is actually good for moose while uh and it's hard on deer.
Hunting Dogs And Life In Kenora
SPEAKER_03Hmm. Interesting. So now uh Bruce, you know, we to even to record our our um uh the podcast that uh we're recording now, we had to time it around a special event for you because uh as I mentioned, you know, I'm out with my gunner every morning. You're out with your buddies uh early in the mornings as well, are you not? Every day. Okay. And what kind of do you have a dog or dogs?
SPEAKER_04I have two dogs. They're uh breed that's uh a German uh hunting dog breed called uh Wachtel Hundes, or uh short form is uh Wachtels, uh sometimes referred to as German Spaniels, but as my uh deceased good friend, uh Gary German, who's from Germany and he ran a bear hunting lodge here nearby until he passed away, uh, and was responsible for me getting onto this breed, he would say, they are not spaniels, they are vachtels. Spaniels are under a foot. And he always uh that was his comment. And uh uh so the Wachtel is a further ranging, it looks sort of like a spaniel, but they're 50, 55 pounds uh as an adult, and they're a little further ranging than spaniels, they don't hang right around your uh feet like uh spaniels do. And like many of the German dogs, they're uh uh they can be trained as uh uh blood tractors, they can be trained as retrievers. I use mine mostly uh for upland uh bird hunting. The first one I had, I used it for uh moose hunting as well, and uh uh that was my dog Heidi. Heidi really liked to hunt moose, that was her favorite. But these we haven't had enough moose around here to make it worthwhile, and we haven't had even been able to get tags, so I haven't trained these two to hunt moose. So I've I'm using them mostly for uh grouse and when I go out west, pheasants.
SPEAKER_03So Bruce, just for our uh our so our listeners know, whereabouts are you located in the province of Ontario? Just say from Toronto for international listeners.
SPEAKER_04Well, I'm the further I'm on Kenora, which is the furthest uh city uh to the west. If you go any further than if you go down the highway uh 40 uh 60 kilometers, then you're in the province of Manitoba. So I'm right on the north shore uh of Lake of the Woods. Kenora is on the north shore of Lake of the Woods, uh right on Highway 17. And as he said, it's about uh a 40-minute drive to the Manitoba border.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, Garrett and I drove through there about a month ago when we were doing our marathon drive back from Calgary when he moved back to Ontario. So nice community. Um, yeah, it's uh yeah, it's nice size. Uh how big is Kenora, Bruce? How many people?
SPEAKER_04Uh the permanent population is estimated to be in and around 15,000, but in the summertime, because it's on Lake of the Woods, and we have a lot of other lakes right within the city limits, probably swells to about 40,000, 45,000 with all the cottagers.
SPEAKER_03Really? A lot of cottages. That's uh well, Lake of the Woods kind of the highway goes along Lake of the Woods, does it not? It does. Yeah, and it's it drives quite a distance too. I know because uh Lake of the Woods is a big lake. It is a big lake, it has uh more than 10,000 islands on it.
SPEAKER_04Really? Yeah, it's uh wow, it's about 60 kilometers long and it's about 40 kilometers uh in its breadth. But it uh and it has some big open stretches, but it it's a really uh uh diverse lake in terms of its shoreline and with all those islands, it's got that big peninsula, which is the Alno Peninsula I was talking about right in the middle. So, and it has uh shares the border with uh Minnesota and uh Manitoba. So it's Ontario, Minnesota, and Manitoba all have portions of their province or state uh right up to Lake of the Woods. It's a big lake.
SPEAKER_09Right.
SPEAKER_01Hi everybody, I'm Angelo Viola. And I'm Pete Bowman. Now you might know us as the hosts of Canada's favorite fishing show, but now we're hosting a podcast. That's right. Every Thursday, Angela will be right here in your ears, bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio. Hmm. Now what are we gonna talk about for two hours every week? Well, you know there's gonna be a lot of fishing.
SPEAKER_07I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show. We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors, from athletes, all the other guys would go golfing, me and Garchomp Turkey, and all the Russians would go fishing.
SPEAKER_07The scientists.
SPEAKER_06But now that we're reforesting and it's the perfect transmission environment for line with these chefs, if any game isn't cooked properly, marinated for me, you will taste it.
SPEAKER_01And whoever else will pick up the phone. Wherever you are, Outdoor Journal Radio seeks to answer the questions and tell the stories of all those who enjoy being outside. Find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
SPEAKER_03And now it's time for another testimonial for Chaga Health and Wellness. Okay, I'm here in Peterborough with uh Rudy from Peterborough. And Rudy, can you tell us about uh your success with your Chaga cream?
SPEAKER_09I love it. Uh I have uh a rare skin disease called Grover's disease, and the doctors really couldn't give me anything that was lasting uh to take away the itch. So when I met Jerry and started using the cream, it was just wonderful. I find it alleviates the itch within 30 seconds, which is just significant, no question about it. So do you think I'm happy with it? Absolutely.
Chronic Wasting Disease Explained
SPEAKER_03All right, thanks Rudy, really appreciate that. We interrupt this program to bring you a special offer from Chaga Health and Wellness. If you've listened this far and you're still wondering about this strange mushroom that I keep talking about and whether you would benefit from it or not, I may have something of interest to you. To thank you for listening to the show, I'm going to make trying Chaga that much easier by giving you a dollar off all our Chaga products at checkout. All you have to do is head over to our website, Chaga Health and Wellness.com, place a few items in the cart, and check out with the code Canopy. C-A-N-O-P-Y. If you're new to Chaga, I'd highly recommend the regular Chaga tea. This comes with 15 tea bags per package, and each bag gives you around five or six cups of tea. Thanks for listening. Back to the episode. So, uh, Bruce, what are some of the other diseases that um large animals like moose and deer and those sort of things uh get, like CWD and chronic wasting disease, CWD? Maybe you can kind of give us uh uh your understanding of what CWD is and how it impacts populations and what to look for if uh to potentially know about it.
SPEAKER_04Well, chronic wasting disease is uh sort of the uh I guess it's the uh poster child of uh diseases these days in terms of people being concerned about it. And uh it's very controversial right now. If you're on Facebook or the internet, there's a lot of people uh questioning uh the government's response to uh uh governments being government of uh in the states and in provinces, how they're responding to chronic waste and disease. And what it is, chronic it's a really strange disease, chronic waste and disease. It's it's it's sort of like it's not a uh a virus and it's not a bacteria, it's not a parasite, it's something called a misfolded protein, which it's pretty hard to wrap your head around what that is. Uh but it's uh there's a whole series of diseases uh that are misfolded proteins, and in humans it's Kruzfeld-Jacobs disease is the equivalent, which is sort of uh uh one of these things that uh sort of uh it's a brain-eating disease. Uh that's what how it manifests itself. So it literally uh chews your brain out. Now it this chronic waste and disease in uh it seems to be specific to deer, and deer being moose, whitetailed deer, mule deer, uh caribou, and elk, reindeer, those are all those are deer. And that's where it seems to be. And people say, well, it it one thing we shouldn't be too concerned about it because it hasn't jumped the species barrier. And I think, well, it the likely origin of this disease is uh from sheep, uh again, a misfolded protein disease in scrape or in sheep that's been around for hundreds of years, if not longer, called scrapie. So it from scrapie, you get this chronic wasting disease, and it was first showed up in uh, I think mule deer, but now it's shown up in uh elk and uh whitetailed deer and moose and uh uh reindeer. So obviously it is jumping the uh species barrier. Um so far uh they haven't positively identified it as uh jumping into humans, or any humans have come down with chronic wasting disease. Although there are a couple of studies and uh that have been published uh in medical journals that say, well, there's a couple of hunters from this area, they both got it. They were both uh eating uh wild game in an area with a lot of chronic wasting disease. So maybe that's uh they had this the human variant called that's Kruzfeld-Yaakov disease. So maybe that's where they got it from. But that wasn't a positive thing. Uh and so far, except for, like I say, a couple of isolated cases, even though there's been like tens of thousands of cases uh identified in wild deer, uh it hasn't sort of uh been uh identified as a cause of uh concern for humans. But because humans get this Kruthfeld-Jacob disease, and they did show that humans were getting uh this CJ D, which is the short form of Kruthfeld-Jacobs, uh, from eating uh contaminated uh beef cattle that get a similar misfolded protein disease called uh bovine, spongiform, encephalitis. So it's all the same family of these misfolded protein diseases. Uh it's recommended, they the recommendation by all these health authorities is for people not to eat uh deer that have been contaminated with uh chronic wasting disease. So, however, there's a lot of people consuming deer, especially in the U.S. and probably in western parts of Canada, hasn't shown up yet in Ontario. Uh but it there are people eating deer that have chronic wasting disease. There's no doubt about it, because not everybody gets their deer tested for it. And when a deer gets this disease, it usually takes three or four years for the deer to die from it. So, and if you're not getting it connected or uh uh tested, and you're in one of these areas with chronic date chronic wasting disease, there's a good chance you're consuming uh the meat from an infected deer. So the main method now, the one of the reasons it's so controversial is that uh because people are so concerned about it as from a potential human health impact, and it seems that because once a deer is uh infected with it, uh it eventually dies from this disease. It takes two, three, four years, but the deer always dies from it. So what game agencies have done to try and control it, when it shows up, they go in on a mission to exterminate all the deer in the area where they identified a uh case of chronic waste and disease. So people are, especially in the States, but uh in Canada as well, where I've used to hunt in Alberta quite a bit, same thing happened. They went in and they literally go in there in the wintertime using helicopters and sharpshooters and all sorts of things, shoot up all the deer. So people are saying, well, we're not really too happy with this. You're gonna save the deer by killing them all. So they're really ticked off uh uh about this because at the end of the day they say it didn't work in many places, it hasn't worked because it's like especially if you're surrounded by an area that already has like Saskatchewan is uh rampant with chronic wasting disease. When it crossed the border into Alberta, they said, well, it's like pissing in the ocean to try and raise uh water level by trying to kill all the deer that are just they I mean, there's no end of the deer in Saskatchewan that have chronic wasting disease. So you're not going to stop it at the border like you are trying to do or you have been successful with rats. It just doesn't work the same thing, keeping rats out uh of uh Alberta. But so, and it hasn't in at least in many parts of the states, the trajectory of the chronic waste and disease infestation hasn't resulted in a decline to the in the populations of deer that some of the alarmists were predicting. So people are saying we're really not happy with this thing of you're trying to kill all the deer to save the deer, it's not killing them all off like you said it would, and it's not uh people don't seem to be getting chronic waste and disease uh in humans. It doesn't seem to be jumping at us. So, what's the problem here? So uh people are fighting back, and like in Saskatchewan and where I hunt in Alberta, it's had a huge impact on the deer populations there. Like we were I used to hunt uh deer, mule deer in uh it was north of Medicine Hat, and we used to see in a week of hunting easily see a hundred mule deer in a week. These days people are saying, well, I we saw three or four and uh no big bucks, and it seems in mule deer, it's particularly devastating, not as bad as in whitetail, but I just last fall I drove out to uh bigger. Bigger is uh just we were waterfowl hunting, but it's the area where Milo Hansen uh shot the world record whitetail deer, and it's it's pretty infamous, or not infamous, but pretty famous as a deer hunting Mecca. So I drove all the way out there. We spent three days waterfowl hunting. We were driving around in the evening and the morning, and then I drove all the way back to Kenora, and I never saw a deer. I didn't see a deer, a moose, really, nothing. And the outfitter we were hunting with said, no, chronic waste disease showed up here about uh three or four years ago, and said he said there's still deer around, but it's just unbelievable the decline in the population. It's just it's nothing like it used to be. There's hardly any deer at all compared to what we had.
How CWD Spreads And Why Control Fails
SPEAKER_03So Yeah, I I recall that Ontario stopped bringing any elk from Elk Island, Alberta, specifically because of the potential for CWD to be in the Elk Island uh herd. So they they stopped transporting any elk into the province of Ontario. But how is CWD spread? Do they even know that yet, Bruce?
SPEAKER_04Well, it's spread by contact uh between animals, but it can also be spread just by soil. So uh a good friend of mine who has uh worked uh he was the one of the top uh bureaucrats in the Manitoba uh department of the equivalent of uh M and R DNR but a department there I'm not sure what they called it every province has a different name for their various uh uh wildlife uh outdoors departments of Dr. Vince Creighton also known as uh Dr. Moose he did a lot of work with Moose and and uh published a number of papers and he worked with Dr. Valerius Geis another famous uh uh ungulate biologist in Canada come from uh and and they said look at and published papers they say we shouldn't even be driving around in vehicles in areas with a lot of uh chronic wasting disease because it gets picked up in the vegetation and can be transported vast distances uh uh in the soil by just what's catches in your uh tire tread. And I was just reading today uh that uh it can actually also there's suspicions that it can be spread by birds like crows that because crows are picking up and eating stuff that's contaminated and has these uh misfolded proteins and they can spread it around so it so it seems like it's almost impossible to uh to contain and it spreads around easily you can't decontaminate uh the soil this where it was first detected in the U.S. in a western state I think it was in 1967 what they was in an enclosure and this deer started getting sick and dying so they finally tried traced down what the problem was and they identified it as chronic wasting disease or what they called it chronic wasting disease so it was the first time it showed up they uh took all the deer out of this uh compound they had they kept them out for over 10 years and they did all sorts of spraying with chemicals and uh this and that to decontaminate the site and after 10 years they put animals back in that compound and they came back down with chronic wasteland disease so you can't even in an auto cleave you can't get rid of it so it's a very strange thing. Now what I think is that over time it's gonna take time and it's already been identified that some individual animals have a resistance to uh the disease they don't get it. So through natural selection. So I think through natural selection eventually they'll become uh uh most of the populations of deer and moose and elk will be resistant to it at least that's the hope and thinking because that's how natural uh selection tends to work so and as I said they've already identified specific animals in specific areas where they've been studying that do have this uh resistance to the disease now there's they're saying some some researchers are saying well the animals that we've identified that have a resistance to this disease are uh uh they have other problems uh they don't seem to be uh very uh good at uh reproduction they produce uh uh sporadic at self-reproduction so they're not they don't have twins very often they don't seem to have a successful uh calf or or uh fawn every year uh so that's one issue now however and this is another controversial thing that they're doing is that they're selectively breeding uh some of these animals that have resistance to chronic waste and disease and now they're so they're taking these captive bred animals and they're releasing them into the wild and they're saying well we're let's build up our population of uh animals that uh are resistant to this chronic waste and disease by by growing uh uh producing these resistant disease free animals and putting them back out into the population of people are saying whoa whoa whoa I I don't really like that's not really a good idea to be uh domesticating and doing all that that sort of inbreeding so that's another big now whether it is a good idea or not I don't really know I don't know enough about it but I I again it's not is is it's a controversial thing but it is happening in a in at least one or two states in the U.S.
SPEAKER_03Right hmm wow yeah CWD is certainly um I know when I was minister I initiated the process by which to determine it so we started a program where we're collecting uh deer uh parts of the just their basically their their their heads in order to do analysis in areas to see if there was CWD in the area but there hadn't been anything reported when I was minister at all but what we wanted to do was to just in case to be able to identify we needed to have the process established and set in place and work the bugs out shall we say and uh we initiated that while I was minister but yeah certainly CWD is impacting a lot of different uh jurisdictions and there's a lot of controversy about it as well. I know Ted Nugent I don't think is a big uh fan of what's happening with CWD and and what should be taking place but uh I don't think Ted's got the expertise that individuals such as yourself and the others that you mentioned would have well as I said it's uh certainly uh uh a subject of a lot of uh controversy in terms of uh its impact on uh wild deer populations and uh what's being done to try and curb its spread.
Brain Worm And The Deer Connection
Elk In Ontario And Liver Fluke History
SPEAKER_04Uh so right now it's still spreading uh there's still this stuff being done but to date as far as I know it hasn't resulted in uh the complete extirpation of a population in any given area it's reduced it certainly in Saskatchewan and parts of Alberta the populations of deer to a great degree but uh in other places not so much and it doesn't seem to uh as I said whitetail uh mule deer seem to be the uh especially male mule deer seem to be the most susceptible to it uh females less so and whitetails uh less so than uh mule deer and free ranging elk less so again and it's only shown up uh in a few moose and occasionally in uh elk so uh it's it's a strange uh strange disease and it's not going uh away anytime soon and the controversies so how how how do you identify is there a way to identify it uh um you know so that people might be able to recognize some some traits in an animal that uh could point to being CWD the the only way you can uh they have to do a an autopsy on a dead animal preferably uh uh they look at uh the brain that's the easiest way to do it uh there's no methodology that's presently available that you can take a wild animal and take a sample of it and uh test for it. Now they're working on that and there I think there's some initial uh positive results that they may be able to do that or they're starting to be able to do that but it's not widespread yet and and may it may not even exist to the to date. So the only way you can tell an animal has it is you have to do an autopsy on it. Now if an animal is in the later stages of uh being infected with chronic waste and disease uh and it they become listless and they start drooling and they they look they look sick because they are sick. Um so generally the the thing to do is like if it if you shoot or you see obviously sick looking animals I mean it it doesn't necessarily mean that it's chronic wasting disease but any animal that obviously looks sick it's recommended that you wouldn't shoot and eat that as a part of your uh diet so uh right right again but like animals get all sorts of things they get cancer and they get sick and they they die so if it's looking sick and it's emaciated uh it's something that you shouldn't uh uh consume but because that's a symptom of chronic wasting disease uh one of the uh sort of things that people have called it and the press has picked up on it they call it the zombie disease because these animals in late stages of infection as I said they're wandering around they're listless they look terrible and uh people say oh they look they're like they're they're behaving like they're a zombie and pick as I said the press has picked up and they call it the zombie disease so if you think about the zombie disease that's chronic wasting disease so what how does it differ from brain worm and maybe you can talk a bit about brain worm and the impact on animals with brain worm as well Bruce well brain worm is an actual uh parasite so it's not a misfolded protein so it's a it's an actual parasite it's called uh the meningial worm is uh another common name and there's the scientific name called uh paralaphylophilus frenuous or tenuous or p tenuous but it's brainworm or meningial worm and it goes through a complex life cycle with uh uh one of the intermediate hosts being land-based snails and slugs so like moose and deer uh pick this up and I guess elk by eating infected uh snails uh that are uh grubs or uh that are on vegetation so but and has to go through that stage where they're in the snail uh for them to get it for the it and then it goes through this other life cycle and it goes from the intestine it travels up the spinal cord and matures in the brain of uh uh of the animal now in deer deer can be infected and uh it doesn't seem to have any uh impact on them they have brain worm and they're just fine and dandy but if a um a moose gets even one uh brain worm it can kill it sometimes it doesn't kill it uh and they can recover but if they get two or three it's pretty much of a uh death sentence so what happens is if you have a high population of uh whitetailed deer and uh like around Kenora at times when the deer population was high there was an estimated and I see it's the same and elsewhere in the province up to 80% of all the deer the whitetails have uh brain worm so the eggs get passed uh on in terms of it when the brain worms living in the brain and what happens is they shed eggs and the eggs get uh transported and it comes out and they're in in the intestine or in the intestine of the deer. So when the deer defecates and it's a little pile of pellets there's uh uh eggs in there now so you get these snails crawling over uh little piles of poop and the eggs when they hatch they can they burrow in through the snail and become into the snail's body and they go through another life cycle stage there and then the snail crawls up on vegetation and gets consumed when the moose or deer are browsing on leaves and twigs. So that's how they that's how it's passed on. And interestingly enough so it it's not snails that live in the uh little ponds that you when you're walking around the pond and you see oh there's all those snails on the underside of uh uh lily pads or crawling around on vegetation in the water these are actually land-based snails that's slugs so if you once you go far enough west you get into uh Saskatchewan and Alberta and even uh western Manitoba it's uh it's just too dry uh uh for these land-based snails and slugs to exist so you don't have any brain worm out there or very very low incidence because those intermediate snail and slug hosts don't exist so you can have high populations of uh white tailed deer and moose and elk all intermingling and you don't have to worry about brain worm but in Ontario if the deer population gets uh I think it's uh somewhere around uh three or four deer per square kilometer uh then it becomes problematic and uh in terms of passing on and infecting the moose population so whenever you have high deer populations uh uh in Ontario it becomes uh and their moose intermixed with the deer that's when it becomes a problem for the moose population so if people say well the moose chase out the deer and deer no if anything it's high deer uh have an impact on moose and when the deer population collapses and the moose population increases it's more than likely a result of changes in habitat and a series of bad winters that's reduced the deer population so there's no longer uh uh an issue with too many deer uh transmitting uh brain worm to moose so that's how it works here in Ontario I thought they had problems in uh Newfoundland with brain worm infecting caribou as well if I remember correctly caribou are also very susceptible to brain worm as I said moose are the most susceptible but caribou are uh well I shouldn't say moose are the most caribou are very susceptible to uh brain worm as well uh elk seem to be somewhat resilient to it caribou is just not as big a problem generally speaking because uh uh caribou and white-tailed deer are very uh seldom in the same area so I don't know uh this business in Newfoundland as far as I know in Newfoundland I didn't think there were whitetailed deer in Newfoundland so and uh I didn't think brain worm was an issue in Newfoundland. So might be Newfoundland and Labrador eh because some now if it's in labrador there probably would be some white tailed deer from neighboring uh uh Quebec that come up into new and Labrador at times so that could be right there. That could be but I thought yeah I wasn't sure I thought it was up in the the peninsula but um the northern part of uh uh Newfoundland but I could be wrong it could have been Labrador as well yeah so uh some other diseases I know that uh uh and you did a thesis on the elk in Ontario I believe and one of the things that elk was a big issue with them was liver fluke if I remember correctly yeah liver liver fluke's another one of these things that now in Ontario elk population disappeared in the late 1800s actually almost disappeared in the early 1800s but there was a few places where it hung on and it looked like uh even in in the around 1880 there was a couple of elk uh killed around uh north bay uh but that that was the last those were the last ones so but to reintroduce that they've tried a couple times to reintroduce elk into Ontario but the most uh serious time they did it other than when you were uh minister and now it's been successful and we've got elk back in the province but they brought in elk in 1932 1933 again from uh Alberta and uh they released them in uh several places and one of the places uh where they were brought in released was a place called uh Burwash which is south of Sudbury was a minimum security prison farm and it was in the animals were enclosed in there and the outpopulation there got up to about 500 and uh oh what happened was well that was way too many uh in a small area it was like as I said they were enclosed in uh a fence so uh uh as just poor uh husbandry practices there was uh also bison were in there so they had all these elk and bison uh running around uh in a small in area and uh they wound up getting probably from because they had cattle in neighbor uh on the farm there as well I don't know if they were in the same enclosure but it wouldn't matter because they would have been next door to one another um right so they got uh liver fluke uh disease and uh at the time well uh and I guess this was in the 40s or late 40s or maybe it would just after the war there was a a big problem uh with the agricultural industry in uh uh Ontario and they brought in uh someone to have a look at what was going on with the this uh uh disease that they were seeing in these elk they were looking sick so they said oh they've got the liver fluke disease so they as a big show the government said well we're gonna get rid of all these elk because they're a threat to the livestock industry and uh they weren't uh uh so it was a political decision and they shot up all the elk and tried to eliminate them from wherever they were in the province and they were pretty successful at doing that uh except at Burwash where there was 500 of them and I guess all the shooting and chasing and there were so many that some had escaped out of the fence, jumped over it and they escaped into the wild. And of course as soon as the population uh got down to more uh reasonable level uh the disease uh disappeared because it was only a quite it was it as I said it was bad husbandry and uh it was just too many elk and too small an area intermixed with these bison and uh uh liver fluke uh just it it naturally went away once the uh you stopped having all this uh contamination of course from all these animals defecating and peeing and doing all this stuff that's just right made an environment right for parasites so nowadays every once in a while the liver fluke shows up in a moose or an elk or a deer but it's only uh an occasional problem it's not really a problem uh in terms of at the population level because in a anywhere in in the wild the populations never get that high that it becomes uh an infestation of great concern so it'll show up a little bit if the population gets really high somewhere but it's it's really not an issue at the population level unless you're enclosed have these animals enclosed in a in a small area so uh Bruce when we're talking about elk um have you heard of elk being back in the North Bay area at all have they have they migrated out of the Burwash uh release site over to North Bay as far as I know they haven't but they have shown up uh uh and there's a few uh populations now showing up uh uh between Sudbury and Perry Sound over to on the um east side of highway uh 69 and of course the and the animals from um Bancroft area are there's movement and we don't know where all of those are uh so the ones that I heard of most recently that are uh they're far enough away from Burwash where some some of these recent releases again took place back as as a around the turn of the century when you were a minister um they could have came from there or they could have came from Bancroft so uh that's not that far from uh North Bay just south south of it maybe a hundred hundred and fifty kilometers uh so I'm still optimistic that there's some really good elk looking habitat over towards uh uh North Bay south of North Bay sort of south of the Doki uh reserve and inner Around Mimi Saigon Singh Lake and some of those other places. I think that's really good elk habitat. But as far as I know, they haven't shown up there yet.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I was with somebody about two months ago that uh, well, actually at the sportsman show that were telling me that they were watching two elk together. Uh they were saying uh up in the North Bay area. Well, it's certainly and I was quite surprised. Yeah. So I was kind of it was good to hear, let's say.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, well, they're starting to show up here and and there. Uh I know there's there's little, there's uh all the way now from Sault Ste. Marie to Sudbury, there's uh uh they're around Blind River and they're by Worthington, uh by Fairbanks uh Provincial Park, and as they're showing up north of Sudbury. So there's little pockets of them here and there. And of course, because they don't have radio callers on them these days, we don't know uh uh where they are. Well, we would like uh like I'm chair of this uh elk technical advisory committee for uh Ontario. So we have people we get together about two or three, four times a year to talk about what's going on with the elk and what kind of things we think that the government should be doing. And we've been tasked to provide the government with uh recommendations as to how they should be managing them. Not that yeah, they I mean some of the things we say they are listening to, and some seems to be well, who knows what happened. They might be listening, but they're not necessarily doing what we've asked them to do. But at least we have a little bit of a forum to provide them with some information. What we would like, uh and what doesn't seem to be happening is that uh when people do see them, uh we'd like them to, you know, if you see an elk, uh report it to your local M and R. Uh and just say, look, I saw some elk, and then they can pass that on to us and or to the wildlife section. And it helps in terms of we get a better understanding of where there are or aren't elk. And it helps in making uh some decisions as to what could or couldn't could be done to uh uh help uh the population grow and become at some point more sustainable than it is. And what ultimately we'd like to see uh them be car be part of uh a bigger part of the uh hunting uh uh uh scene in Ontario because they're they're a good game animal to hunt, they're really excellent eating, and uh the if there's a wild population that's uh sustainable, there's no reason why we shouldn't be hunting them.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah. So uh Bruce, what what is are there any other diseases that you think that uh should be mentioned that people should be cognizant of uh in regards to um game animals or uh just in wild and in in general?
SPEAKER_04Well, as I said, I'm not a real expert on on this stuff, so there's a myriad of uh various diseases that are out there and that manifest themselves in in a variety of different species. Uh one of the things uh that I should mention that it's of interest uh is a it's called a hydatic cyst, and it's it's a disease that's mostly uh found in uh wolves and coyotes and that sort of thing. But it can you can humans humans can pick it up and it doesn't necessarily kill them, but it can make them pretty sick. Um so the the easiest way to avoid uh uh uh that disease by humans is don't go around picking up uh or touching the scat of uh wolves and coyotes. So just I mean, you shouldn't touch scat anyway because it can have various uh uh especially like little tiny eggs that you might pick up and gets caught in your fingernail, and then people poke poking their no fingers in their nose or chewing on their uh fingernails and that sort of thing. So that so it now the only usually the people who do wind up uh being sick from hydated cysts are people who like who are trappers and they're handling a lot of uh they're handling wolves and this and that. So the ones that usually get it. But anybody that's out walking around in the woods, uh it's just a good idea to stay away from uh handling a feces of any animals unless you have uh uh gloves or something on. So that's that's one of the diseases that uh uh and parasites that you should stay away from. I mean, there's tularemia that uh wind up in it it's another uh worm that uh uh I think it's in uh bears and beavers and things like this. So uh uh again with I think it's tularemia on bears, but with bear meat, it's the same as you can get potential in uh pigs too, eh? Uh so like so with bears, the recommendation is if you're gonna eat bear meat, cook it well, or put it in a uh a regular uh deep freeze like people have in their house. And if it's frozen for 20 days, uh it uh it it renders it uh it kills it kills that parasite as well. So those are the two ways you can make sure that you're not gonna get something from eating bear meat, because that's a potential uh uh disease that you can get from eating bear meat. So there's there's a variety of uh things out there, and uh, you know, lots of them are and some of these are transmittable by black flies and mosquitoes and not to humans, but that's how they these things get around. So if you have a hate on for mosquitoes and black flies, there's a good reason for it, other than just trying to get bit by it, because they transmit uh these uh diseases.
Rabies Control And Predator Populations
SPEAKER_03So right, right. Well, yeah, I think that you know there's a lot of stuff out there. There's you know, there's there's fox rabies and there's raccoon rabies, and fox rabies is virtually non-existent in Ontario anymore. And I can recall when I was minister of rabies. Uh people don't know that the third most common um animal carrying rabies. Any idea what it was uh when I was minister, Bruce? It may have obviously would have changed now, I would think, because fox rabies are not really in Ontario. Well fox is number one.
SPEAKER_04Well, actually, uh the in North America, my understanding is that the number one way for rabies to be uh an animal that gets rabies are cows.
SPEAKER_03That's number three. It was in Ontario when I was minister, fox was one. Bats were number two, and then cows were number three. But uh cows is kind of skewed because uh the belief is that 100 percent of cows that have rabies are all reported, whereas 100% of fox or bats or other animals out there would not be reported because you don't really know, right? That's for true. Yeah. And now the the big concern is raccoon rabies, which is a completely different strain that uh it's it's making its way into Ontario that um can impact uh numerous populations as well. Are you familiar with raccoon rabies, Bruce? Uh to some degree.
SPEAKER_04Oh uh one of the things I like that uh I've always sort of been somewhat skeptical about is the treatment for rabies in Ontario is that you fly around and you uh uh drop all these uh baits that have uh uh that makes the animal uh immune from getting rabies. So they don't get rabies. So what but uh what happens though, uh I think is that so you wind up with uh all these uh uh disease-resistant uh fox and uh skunk populations and uh so you wind up with a lot more foxes and skunks than you would have normally had because they're all they're disease resistant. And uh that's uh that's not really uh necessarily a good thing because they get other things, and of course, uh they're predat top line predators, so all these other things you're managing for are all being consumed like uh what like foxes and and uh raccoons and skunks are tremendous predators on uh uh waterfowl uh nesting populations and uh upland game birds and this and that. So it's not necessarily a good thing to have a whole uh population of uh raccoons and foxes and skunks immune from uh rabies and other diseases. That maybe the best thing to do is is just be more aware because you uh I mean you you shouldn't be feeding by hand uh or uh rummaging around uh in areas and trying to be friends with your uh foxes and skunks and raccoons, that uh uh avoidance is a better part of valor in this case.
SPEAKER_03Well, yeah, and because they used to regulate the population, rabies used to regulate the pop population of foxes and keep the numbers down, but now you have a large number of foxes that are surviving that are consuming rough gross nestes along with all kinds of different groundbird nests, uh nesting animals, as you mentioned, uh waterfowl as well, and all the others that are out there and having huge impacts on those populations as well, rabbits, et cetera, et cetera. So it's not always uh, you know, we try we try to jump in there and fix nature. Uh nature has a tendency to take care of itself, but we have to find ways and that even a lot of people wouldn't understand, but trapping helps regulate a lot of those populations to make sure that they're in check and that you don't get the spread of a lot of diseases.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it was interesting. Uh I was down uh uh not last fall, but the fall before I drove down to Nebraska to go uh uh prairie chicken hunting for a couple of days, and there were huge billboards out in the uh uh countryside there uh that says, like pheasant hunting, support your trapper. And uh because that's they were saying it's you know, all these uh and it was big business in the Dakotas and in Nebraska, pheasant hunting and and uh grout grouse hunting. And uh they said, you know, if you support trappers and they keep the population of coyotes and foxes and raccoons and skunks down, you're gonna have a lot more pheasants and and uh grouse around. So it was pretty interesting. Like obviously they were taking it seriously, and they're these were like full-size billboards that were saying support your trapper. And I just have a hard time envisioning that in Ontario for some reason.
SPEAKER_03Well, you a lot of people who are basically in urban centers don't really understand the impact of, you know, you're talking about uh hunting pheasants and things like that. And earlier on I mentioned, you know, you have 10 or 12 individuals going moose hunting in a one crew alone. Uh you're potentially putting 10,000, 12,000 to a local economy during a time of year when, you know, you mentioned about up in Kenora when it the cottage season swells, but after that, they're starving and looking for funds in these uh seasons. And you go into places like um oh Wilberforce and places along that way, and during the deer hunt, there's all kinds of individuals going into the grocery stores and the general store there and buying gas in town, et cetera, et cetera. But the rest of the time they're waiting for the summer season in order to pay their bills. So there is some major contributions that are done by these sectors to society that you certainly gain knowledge of when you're minister and how the impact on certain, predominantly a lot of rural societies and and how they uh have a dependency to look at those seasons as uh as revenue generators for them. Absolutely. Yeah. All right. Are there any others that you you just need to let us know about, Bruce, that you think that uh should be mentioned?
SPEAKER_04Well, my little brain is uh hopefully I don't have brainworm myself here, but uh I'm uh no I there as I said, uh not being the expert, these other things don't come readily top top of mind. But does he I never used to think that uh when I was back in the university days, I was all gung-ho as uh an ecologist and uh uh habitat specialist. That I thought as long as the habitat was uh there was sufficient habitat of quality around, but everything else would kind of look after. And to some degree, that's there's there's truth in that. But diseases and parasites are certainly a much bigger uh issue, and need we need to be aware of it as both uh uh users of the resource and as managers. So they can they can have a huge impact. Uh and as I said, nowhere was that made more uh apparent to me than to see the moose population on the Olno Peninsula collapse from about 2,000 animals to zero over a period of about three years from disease and parasites.
Where To Read More From Bruce
SPEAKER_03That's that's huge impact. Yeah. And anything that can be done to make sure that we don't go through those kind of huge swings in three years, 2,000 animals on the Alano Peninsula, none. But yeah. So that's uh we appreciate you taking the time, Bruce. Um, Bruce, where can people get in touch or read more of your information? Uh you've been on a couple of times, and we really appreciate your your knowledge. Um and how can they get back uh in touch with you? And I did you do some writing and you also have uh a blog or a site that you can send people to?
SPEAKER_04Yeah my blog exists. I don't uh uh regularly update it, but every once in a while I add something to it. And I've got it's an archival system, so all the stuff that I have been on there for the past several years are are there. So I have a blog, it's called uh well, it's www.wildlifeperspectives.com. So, but if you put usually if you uh Google my name, Bruce Ranta, it'll take you to uh one of those, uh it'll take you to that site as an option, and then you can click on that. That's the easiest way. For anybody who's reading Ontario Out of Doors magazine, I'm a uh columnist for the magazine, and you can get in touch with me through the magazine by just uh uh making an email to the magazine and saying I have a question for Bruce Ranta and it gets to me that way. So those are those are the two easiest ways to see what I've been doing and what I'm up to.
SPEAKER_03Very good. And Bruce, just so our listeners know, how many years did uh the Ministry of Natural Resources benefit from your knowledge? How long were you there for the with them? About thir 30 years. Okay. Speaks volumes in uh the ability to help with uh wildlife and everything that's taking place out there. Well, as always, we really appreciate all your knowledge and uh sharing it with everybody because these are interesting topics of stuff that we find very fascinating out there under the canopy. Thanks, Bruce.
SPEAKER_04Well, thank you, Jerry, and uh I'm just hoping to get some warmer weather so I can go out there and and look for some uh morel mushrooms. I like uh I like those fungies, those wild fungies myself. So uh but it's been too cold. It was again it was down to four below heat zero again last night, the fourth night in a row that went down uh significantly below freezing. So hopefully warm weather is on the way, though, and uh I can find some morels in the next couple of weeks. Sounds good, Bruce. Thanks again, Jacob. Thanks.
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