Robin Louie, hunter and knowledge keeper, is worried.
He fears that the food security, traditional knowledge and culture of his people will suffer another blow with the feared arrival of chronic wasting disease in his territory in the South Kootenays.
“It’s a serious problem,” said Louie, executive of the Ktunaxa Nation Council, which includes four First Nations.
“Our nations generally eat a lot of wild game.”
On Tuesday, BC released its first set of new rules to try to stop the spread of chronic wasting disease, also known as zombie deer diseaseafter recently confirming two deer south of Cranbrook tested positive.
This deadly neurological disease has no cure and affects cervids such as moose, deer, moose and caribou and is almost impossible to eliminate once it becomes established in wild populations.
Caused by abnormal proteins, or prions, that accumulate in the brain, spine and lymph nodes, the disease in its later stages leaves the animals extremely skinny and exhibiting strange behaviors such as stumbling, drooling and drinking and urinating more.
The province has followed the disease’s spread from west and south to the U.S. border with growing alarm, particularly after it was found in animal populations within 50 kilometers of British Columbia’s border with Alberta and Montana in the last years.
The disease has far-reaching social, economic and conservation impacts, especially for Indigenous populations who rely on hunting for traditional foods, the province said. CWD Response Plan Statuses for 2023.
Nicknamed zombie deer disease, CWD carries potential health problems and far-reaching social, economic and conservation effects, especially for indigenous populations who rely on hunting for traditional foods.
American research indicates that the disease has caused a decline in deer and elk in some places when the disease within a population reaches 20 percent and 13 percent of the animals, respectively.
Threatened caribou populations They are vulnerable to the disease and would likely make their recovery even more difficult, according to the response plan.
He three endangered southern caribou herds in Ktunaxa territory They are already extinct as a result of habitat impacts caused by human activity.
The region’s elk are also increasingly pressured by similar threats, such as logging, road construction, climate change, wildfires and recreational hunters who have drawn tags on elk, Louie said.
“We haven’t harvested a moose in six years because of low numbers,” said Louie, also a Yaqan Nuʔkiy (Lower Kootenay Band) councillor.
In his youth, he hunted three or four elk a year, Louie said. Therefore, any potential threat to the deer and elk populations the band depends on is cause for concern, he emphasized.
“We’re always worried that elk and deer will do the same thing one day.”
Access to traditional foods is essentially food security, Louie said, adding that the Yaqan Nuʔkiy rely heavily on wild game.
“Typically the community eats about 30 elk and 60 deer a year and we are a small community with just over 100 people living on the reservation,” he said.
“That’s a substantial amount of food.”
Gathering game animals is also fundamental to the culture, tradition and identity of his nation and his family, said Louie, who takes his children, other youth and non-Indigenous people hunting. He also shares the preparation, rituals, and spiritual relationship the Yaqan Nuʔkiy have with the animals and their land.
“My job now is to preserve the knowledge, to pass on what I got from my elders and my older relatives,” Louie said.
“Our cultural knowledge has a lot to do with animals.”
Young people learn to skin and process the meat and hides, tendons, bones and antlers for other uses and tools.
Meat is also medicine in the community, he said.
Sick people will request specific parts of the animal, such as fresh hearts, kidneys, and livers, depending on their illness.
In honor of a successful hunt, young people are offered a portion of fresh game as part of a traditional ceremony.
“When we kill our animals, we still show the kidney and the heart to our children, we tell them our words and they choose to be hunters, warriors or both,” Louie said.
“If our traditional practices cannot be passed on, our culture begins to disappear and has already been severely affected over the years.”
Indigenous peoples’ heavy reliance on wild game may also mean they face greater potential health risks from eating meat from infected deer, elk, moose, and caribou.
To date there is no evidence that CWD has jumped from animals to humans with fatal consequences as did mad cow disease (Creutzfeldt-Jakob), another type of prion degenerative brain disease – after appearing in British cattle in the mid-1980s.
Due to the unknown risk to humansCanadian public health authorities warn that infected animals should not be handled or eaten.
Since some animals may not show symptoms, hunters in areas where CWD occurs should have their meat tested before using or consuming anything. state federal authorities.
BC preliminary defense before CWD is centered in the area where the first confirmed cases were found, working to confirm details and minimize transmission.
On Tuesday, the province ordered that any roadkill of elk, deer, moose and caribou in that immediate radius receive mandatory testing. There are also restrictions on the transportation or disposal of dead bodies.
The disease hot zone includes south of Highway 3, south of Cranbook to the US border, west to the Moyie Range and east to the McDonald Range.
Submission Deer heads for CWD testing are mandatory. for licensed hunters in high-risk areas along the borders in the Southeast Kootenays since 2019. However, collectors with treaty rights in their territory were not necessarily subject to the same requirements as authorized hunters.
Louie said the next step is to have information sessions and discussions with Ktunaxa members about the arrival of CWD in their territory.
“We will look to ship heads more frequently,” he said.
But waiting for test results will be a burden.
The community hunts when it needs food and can’t necessarily store meat or wait for test results before eating it, he added.
“We really hope the government focuses on developing some type of rapid test because no one hunts more elk or deer than we do.”
However, Louie is confident in Yaqan Nuʔkiy’s ability to track animal populations for outbreaks, gather vital information on transmission, and partner with conservation authorities to address the problem.
Regular licensed hunters typically only have eyes on animals during hunting season, but their community is on the land interacting and harvesting animals year-round, he said.
The strong relationship with deer and elk populations means the nation has a solid understanding of their behavior and distribution patterns, Louie said.
“We monitor the animals so much that we know where they come from, what their schedule is and the paths they travel,” he said.
“If they are in areas they shouldn’t be or start acting irrationally, we will have a good warning.”
Rochelle Baker / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada’s National Observer