Just as firearm season is ramping up, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources is requiring certain hunters get their kills tested for bovine tuberculosis.
The requirement is in place for hunters in Dearborn County north of State Road 48. The agency is also running check stations in Fayette and Franklin Counties, where hunters are strongly encouraged, but not mandated, to visit.
The increased surveillance comes after Indiana’s first wild bovine TB case was found in Franklin County earlier this year.
DNR deer research biologist Joe Caudell says it’s unlikely for deer to spread the disease because, because, for the most part, they don’t roam in packs—especially since Indiana doesn’t allow deer-baiting.
He also says the chance the disease could be transmitted to humans is slim—unless they’re eating the innards raw.
“The infected tissue most of that is gonna be the lung tissue, those lymph nodes, those sorts of things,” Caudell explains. “Usually, most folks, they still dress their deer, that material gets left in the field.”
Caudell says instead, the measure is meant more for the DNR to be able to keep tabs on where infected animals pop up.
“They are typically considered a dead-end host,” he says. “They won’t spread that disease to another host, or at least not to another deer or cattle or anything like that.”
However, in certain cases wild deer can spread the bacterial infection to domesticated animals such as cattle or captive elk.
Test samples from the harvested deer’s lymph nodes are sent to Purdue University’s Animal Disease Diagnostic Lab. If TB is identified, the DNR will increase surveillance of the deer’s origin and cull deer after hunting season ends.
Caudell says to cook any meat thoroughly and to use gloves when field-dressing.
