Innovation Anthology #276:
Chronic Wasting Disease is a prion folding disease that attacks deer, similar to the way BSE destroys the brains of cattle.
Dr. Vic Adamowicz is a rural economist at the University of Alberta. He’s studying the social and economic impacts of CWD on hunting, agriculture and aboriginal people.
Resident hunting, for example, is worth $50 million a year to the Alberta economy.
DR. VIC ADAMOWICZ: In our estimate of a worst case scenario, so avoiding the spread of chronic wasting disease to the extent that it may occur if we can’t slow it down, we’re looking about a half a million dollars a year in losses to hunters in this worse case scenario. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but that half million dollars a year would occur every year if we can’t stop CWD. If we could invest in a program that in two years reduces CWD at a cost less than a $2 to $4 million dollars, it’s worth it just from the hunting perspective.
The research of Dr. Adamowicz shows that about one third of hunters feel comfortable eating deer meat before it is tested for Chronic Wasting Disease.
Thanks today to the Canadian Institutes for Health Research.
FOR INNOVATION ANTHOLOGY
I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
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Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Program Date: 2009-12-15