The Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation last year worked with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment to create a video for hunters who want to keep trophy heads, but still want to be able to submit samples for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) testing.

"Chronic Wasting Disease has been much more of an issue down in the States for for several decades now, so they're kind of ahead of the curve when it comes to dealing with a lot of these things," said Darrell Crabbe with the SWF. "In a few of the states they had designed 'do it yourself' videos on how to extract the required sample to test for CWD, so we took it upon ourselves, working with the Ministry of Environment, to create a video that shows hunters how to extract those samples themselves."

Crabbe said the process is very simple.

"I always tell anyone if you can fillet a fish, you will have absolutely no problems extracting those samples," he encouraged. "Then you just bag it like you normally would, you know in a little sandwich bag, and then bring it to one of our testing stations and drop and go through the same process with putting your testing number on there and submit it."

"It saves one full step in that process, and you are able to keep the head for possible mounting, or whatever it might be. But it saves that one step and you'll get your results much, much quicker."

Iga Stasiak, Wildlife Health Specialist with the Ministry, submitting your own samples for CWD testing has always been an option.

"I just think a lot of hunters weren't aware of it previously," she explained. "This is a great way for hunters to be able to collect their own samples, in order to keep their mounts, and to get their animals tested."

"A lot of hunters are already well-versed in processing and getting their own samples, they are a lot more comfortable than maybe someone from the general public in collecting these types of tissues," noted Stasiak. "So if hunters are willing and they're interested in it, it also does speed up the turn around time for testing."

"It's only about a three or four minute operation to extract those samples," noted Crabbe with the SWF. "I urge everyone to get in there, and get them done, and it'll help the whole process, to determine whether we have positives or not out there, and it's good research for us to know where CWD is and isn't."

He said the DIY sampling also enables the hunter to be able to make the decision on how their meat is processed.

Stasiak said they are checking the samples for prions, an infectious protein that causes the CWD.

"It does tend to accumulate and concentrate there, and that's why we're specifically focusing on those areas."

The Ministry has been asking, not mandating, hunters to submit samples for 20 years.

"The information is really critical to helping our wildlife biologists and managing our populations of deer, elk, moose, trying to understand where the disease is and and how, how the populations are being impacted."

"We have found increasing rates of infection in our populations," she noted. "In some parts of the province we have extremely high infection rates in our mule deer population. We've seen increases cases in moose in the last few years, so definitely the information is really valuable and and sort of has shown the progression of the disease increasing spread of distribution across the province."

Sooner turnaround time for test results means the meat can be utilized sooner, because without testing, you can't tell if your animal has the disease.

"Most animals that are infected with CWD will appear perfectly healthy, so really, only in the last stage of the disease, in the last few weeks or months of infection, is when they start really looking thin and kind of unhealthy, so most hunters wouldn't be able to tell, so you could really only tell through tests."

What you do with the samples is what you do with the whole heads, but it's less bulk to carry.

"There's all kinds of CWD drop off stations across the province, and if you go online to the Ministry of Environment site and services for hunters, it'll show you where all of those sites are, and we urge everyone to just to speed up the process if they can, to extract those samples themselves, and get them sent in. You'll save one full step and probably have your return a few weeks earlier than you would have through the normal process."

Stasiak said the program is resulting in some management strategies for the province.

"There are different ways to deal with it, through Hunter Harvest, through trying to avoid things like congregation of animals on the landscape, so discouraging hunters from putting out baits or minerals to attract wildlife," she explained. "As we've seen with COVID, you know, anytime you're congregating in large numbers, that's a major source of disease spread or transmission."

"Baiting is actually quite widespread here in Saskatchewan, in a lot of different jurisdictions as well. It's pretty common for hunters actually to put out bait. Not everyone does it, and it's not absolutely necessary, but it's just a preference and something that a lot of hunters have been doing for years."

Another way to slow the spread of CWD is by avoiding long distance movement of carcasses.

"I wanted to encourage hunters to submit their samples for chronic wasting disease testing to support our program, to help us get a better understanding of this disease in our wildlife population. And if there are any questions, hunters are encouraged to get in touch with us and we can help assist, and certainly if hunters want to take advantage of doing their own sampling, they're encouraged to do so."

Watch the video here (WARNING - Bambi's not okay!): 

One more note: heads-rolling pun aside, there is no penalty currently being enforced by the Ministry of Environment for not submitting heads or samples in for CWD testing.