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Elk To Fade No More?

A MAF Invermay deer-scientist may have stumbled on to the cause of one of New Zealand's major deer diseases.

Dr Ken Waldrup has been examining wapiti and elk suffering from fading elk syndrome, a disease where seemingly healthy deer stop eating and fade away. His research indicates that the syndrome may be linked to parasite infestation.

Waldrup believes that a species of worm common to red deer is infecting the wapiti. With this types of parasite, the immature worm spends part of its life-cycle in an animal's stomach acid glands. In sheep and cattle, the worms eventually mature and leave the gland. This doesn't seem to happen with the elk.

The immature worms tie up acid production. Without this acid, digestive enzymes don't work, and food passes through the animal without being digested. Acid is also essential for the absorption of white drenches and copper supplements. Worm infestation means neither of these procedures work.

Farmers can't even detect the worms, because the immature worms don't produce the eggs that would show up in fcal egg counts.

Waldrup stresses that his hypothesis requires many more months of research.

"But after finding the immature worms and neutral pH in every single case tested so far, I'm convinced it's no fluke, and that this is the right track to be going down. It's a matter now of linking everything together and looking for solutions," he says.

The next step in the research is to find a way of bringing the pH back down to normal. Waldrup also wants to know why the problem only affects wapiti and elk.

Claire Grant, MAF Invermay