Hoof rot disease hasn't run its course in elk

To The Eagle:

I enjoyed the beautiful photos by Poul Toftemark of about 50 elk around Seal River. I look forward to the time when healthy elk will again roam our fair state from west to east and north to south, and this is quite possible to achieve, but we believe that will not happen with the present “team” of Drs. Mansfield, Jonker, Besser, Pamplin, and their technical advisory group. First of all, among the 50 or so elk in the photo, it would be difficult to spot an elk with hoof rot because they move less than healthy elk and might not be noticed especially from a distance.

To achieve this healthy elk status that our citizens so strongly desire, things must change. Six plus years with the present “team” to learn the cause of elk hoof-rot has come up empty. Why is this? Early on the mentality of the team leaders surfaced, and it said “even if we find the cause of the disease, there is nothing we can do about it.” So the procedure seemed to develop, “Let’s do some research around it and get out as many publications in our names as possible. Let’s do what is good for us. To do that we have to avoid finding the cause and we have to suppress information and prevent others from finding the cause, for once the cause is found our job is over because we have the firm belief that nothing can be done in the wild to remedy the cause.”

Find the cause? It’s not going to happen with the Anderson team.

I hope the beautiful pictures of the elk that you published does not convince our citizens that the disease has run its course. That of course is not true. I enclose pictures of a pile of elk bones of an elk that died with hoof rot in my neighbor’s yard just a few weeks ago. We assumed that her calf died, too.

Leptospira, is beyond a shadow of a doubt, the cause of the disease and can be cured and prevented by vaccination. I would be happy to answer any questions in your paper, if you wish, that your readers might want to ask.

Boone Mora, Doctor of Public Health

Skamokawa