Seasons – December 2021

From the Plateau Land & Wildlife Management Team

Table of Contents

End of the Year Wildlife Activities 
An Update on Chronic Wasting Disease
Service Spotlight: Winter Webinar Series
Top 5 Things to Consider When Crafting Your Estate Plan
Field Notes: Pictures & Highlights of Properties in Wildlife Management
News for Texas Landowners

End of the Year Wildlife Management Activities

By Kameron Bain, Landowner Account Manager

An Update on Chronic Wasting Disease

By Shane Kiefer, Chief Operating Officer, Director Of Ecological Services, Certified Wildlife Biologist, Senior Property Tax Consultant

Hunting in Texas is a two-billion-dollar-plus industry that is supported by rural lands and landowners. Since its 2012 emergence in Texas in a free-ranging mule deer population, chronic wasting disease has changed the game for some hunters and landowners across the state. A lot has changed since we last updated this article in 2020. Unfortunately, not for the better. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) recently adopted updated rules to improve monitoring of deer breeding facilities and adjust proof-of-sex requirements to reduce unnecessary carcass movement.

Chronic wasting disease is still spreading. The CWD tracking page, lists 270 positive cases of CWD in Texas, including 2 cases in red deer and 4 in elk in 14 different counties. The 64 positives in 2021 are the most since 70 were detected in 2018. The vast majority (74%) have been associated with breeder deer or their release sites across 8 counties. Of the 70 free range deer that have tested positive, all but 12 have come from far west Texas, with those dozen occurring in Medina and Val Verde Counties. That county count is likely to rise with 44 counties now known to have received over 1,000 deer from CWD-exposed facilities since 2018. The updated rules were deemed necessary by TPWD staff to address shortcomings in early detection and containment made apparent by the 2021 discovery of this potentially exposed-deer movement to those counties.

The neurological disease is only seen in the Cervidae family which includes deer, elk, and moose. The disease seems to be limited to a subset of cervids including all those native to North America as well as sika deer and red deer. The CWD prions (infectious, misfolded proteins) are shed in the waste and body fluids of infected animals and can persist in the environment long after any infected individuals are gone. CWD has been reported in 25 states since its discovery in Colorado in 1967. The Centers for Disease Control recommends testing susceptible species harvested from known CWD locations before consumption. There are still no recorded transmissions to humans and animal research models offer no clear evidence that transmission is possible.

Information for Hunters and Landowners

CWD Zones with mandatory sampling for hunter harvested deer have been expanded. For the 2021-2022 hunting season these zones include parts of Kimble County, the Trans-Pecos, South Central Texas, the Panhandle, Val Verde County, Hunt County, and Lubbock County. Check the Outdoor Annual CWD Section for more details. Deer harvested within these CWD zones must be brought to a TPWD check station within 48 hours after harvesting and restrictions on carcass movements apply. Deer head waivers must be obtained from a check station before transporting an intact head from any CWD zone.

TPWD also monitors free-range deer throughout the state for CWD. Hunters outside CWD zones can volunteer to have their animals tested by taking them to a check station or contacting their local TPWD biologist. If bringing a quartered animal and the associated head to a check station, be sure to remove the head from the carcass 2 to 3 vertebrae below the head to ensure that the appropriate tissues for CWD testing are not damaged.

For those of you with susceptible exotic species on your property, the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC) requires all susceptible exotics (red deer, sika deer, elk, reindeer, black-tailed deer, moose, and any subspecies and hybrids of these species) harvested statewide to be tested. Private landowners with these species are required to test any harvested/dead deer until 3 valid test results are obtained from the property for the year. If the property is located outside of a CWD Zone, the property owner is responsible for sample submission and costs for the first 3 CWD tests and must report those results to TAHC within 30 days of receiving test results.

One of the better articles you can read about CWD is on the Texas Wildlife Association’s website. The Cesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute also published a bulletin on CWD this year. The Texas Parks and Wildlife website has abundant resources about CWD and current rules and regulations set in place for hunting in Texas can be found in the Outdoor Annual.

For questions or more information, contact [email protected] or (512) 894-3479.

Service Spotlight: 2022 Winter Webinar Series

Top 5 Things to Consider When Crafting Your Estate Plan

So many of you are out there doing great work. We appreciate you, and so do the native wildlife on your property and across Texas. Large or small, you are making a difference. Look for more great examples of wildlife and landowner stories and victories in upcoming Seasons Newsletters!

News for Texas Landowners

Prescribed burn kit launch aims at education, advocacy

Article by Texas Agrilife

One of the biggest obstacles for landowners and burn managers advocating for prescribed burns is the need to educate communities and county officials about what exactly a prescribed burn entails, the safety protocols involved and the ultimate benefits for the land.

Experts from the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, rangeland and prescribed burn scientists and specialists, and stakeholders all came together to create a communication kit to make it easier for landowners to educate the public and advocate for prescribed burns.

Anyone may now download the Prescribed Burn Kit they developed for free. The inspiration for the Prescribed Burn Kit…

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No Bird Wants to Live in a Murder Nest

Article by The Atlantic

In the spring of 2019, the biologist Tore Slagsvold headed into the forests outside Oslo to stage a series of tiny crime scenes. He didn’t need bullets, or bootprints, or even bodies or blood; only a handful of plush, white feathers.

Slagsvold’s audience was avian—the region’s blue tits and pied flycatchers. And with any luck, his faux, fluffy evidence was going to scare the bejesus out of them. He set up several nest boxes and scattered the feathers inside, and just as he hoped, the birds balked. They were, Slagsvold told me, afraid of the feathers, or at least what they seemed to represent: fresh violence, a predator on the loose, the possible remnants of a sharp-toothed weasel’s afternoon snack. The likely fate that awaited them, should they dare enter such an accursed abode.

The danger, of course, wasn’t actually real. “The key word is deception,” said Slagsvold, of the University of Oslo…

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Texas adopts new management rules for chronic wasting disease in deer

Article by Matt Wyatt for The Houston Chronicle

AUSTIN — The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission adopted a new chronic wasting disease management rule package  Thursday, regulations mostly geared toward the state’s deer breeding industry.

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department staff believe the update was necessary because the previous CWD rules were deemed inadequate to prevent the transmission of the always-deadly disease in the wake of a recent outbreak in more than 30 CWD-positive deer at seven facilities across the state.

The most significant aspects of the new rule package include a requirement that breeders ante-mortum (live deer) test every deer 12 months and older at least eight months prior to release…

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Whooping cranes are slowly making their way to the Texas coast: Here’s what to know

Article by Christopher Howley for the Corpus Christi Caller Times

The first sightings of the endangered whooping crane are being reported along the Texas coast.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is reminding residents to be aware of these rare birds as they move across the state. Whooping cranes are the tallest, rarest birds in North America and have a population of around 506.

Starting in their Canadian breeding grounds in Alberta’s Wood Buffalo National Park, the whooping cranes make a 2,500-mile trip to the Texas coast every year. The first family group of the season was seen by Wade Harrell,  a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Whooping Crane Coordinator, at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge…

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