WESTERN SKIES - September 29, 2005

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ERIC WHITNEY: Chronic wasting disease is now known to infect moose. That news from the Colorado Division of Wildlife today. Officials with the Division confirmed what they say is the first ever known case of chronic wasting disease, or CWD, in wild moose.

That disease, related to so-called "mad cow disease," has long been present in the state's deer and elk, and has led to the mass slaughter of tens of thousands of those animals, both in the wild and captivity. CWD has been an enigma to wildlife biologists since it was first identified in captive deer in Colorado in the 1970s.

It's only been in recent years that there have been widespread efforts to map CWD's extent in wild populations of deer and other antlered animals. Colorado only began testing wild moose for the disease in 2003. Last year researchers deliberately exposed a captive moose to tissue contaminated with the disease, and confirmed that it became infected.

The significance of finding CWD in wild moose is still unknown, as are many other very basic aspects of the disease, such as how exactly it is transmitted.

But Colorado Division of Wildlife spokesman Tyler Baskfield says it's believed that close contact between animals spreads the disease and, therefore, that it poses less of a threat to moose.

TYLER BASKFIELD: Moose have much different behavior than deer and elk when it comes to their social behavior, and therefore, we don't expect to see it as prevalent in moose as it is in deer and elk.

WHITNEY: Because there is no live test for chronic wasting disease, biologists largely rely on hunter-killed animals for tissue samples. Moose hunting season is not yet over in Colorado, so there's still a chance that further cases could be found here.

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WHITNEY: In 2001 Colorado's most extreme ski area opened in Silverton. Since then it's been operating on a very limited basis. Due to substantial avalanche danger and private property issues, Silverton Mountain has only been allowed to let one hundred skiers a day on its slopes, all of whom must ski with a designated guide. From KSUT in Igancio, Joan Zwisler reports that rules on the ski area will soon be eased.

JOAN ZWISLER: The Bureau of Land Management has given the green light to an expansion of the Silverton Mountain Ski Operation. The BLM has approved a forty-year lease of thirteen hundred acres to owner Aaron Brill.

AARON BRILL: The concept is still the same, it's a one lift back country type ski area where you hike to access a lot of the runs. And the primary difference of what this gives us is it gives us the ability to start offering some unguided ski options come April 2006. And it also allows us, when we do have unguided skiing options, to allow it for up to four hundred seventy-five skiers. Although this winter things will remain mostly the same until April, you know it really allows us a lot of operational flexibility for the future.

ZWISLER: Unguided skiing will only be allowed when avalanche conditions allow. The decision follows three years of environmental study and comment. Silverton Mountain had been operating under a short term permit and had to be renewed annually.