Disease debate takes over caribou trials

On the second day of the caribou waste trials in Point Hope, opinions clashed over whether modern science and disease-control methods are any better than traditional customs for keeping humans safe from illness sometimes found in game meat.

It's the latest debate in a trial that has three hunters accused of wasting caribou meat in July 2008 during a hunt outside the Northwest Alaska village. Aqquilluk Hank is accused of killing and failing to harvest the meat of two caribou. Two of his hunting companions -- Roy Miller and Chester Koonuk -- are accused as accomplices. The three men are fighting allegations they violated the state's hunting regulations, which require hunters to salvage all edible meat, even meat they suspect is contaminated with disease.

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The Point Hope hunters claim traditional hunting methods call for not harvesting meat from sick-looking animals, knowledge they've gleaned over generations and handed down by elders and hunters.

On Wednesday, dueling experts debated whether humans could contract disease from caribou. In particular are concerns cited by Hank that one of the caribou he left behind was infected with brucellosis, a highly contagious bacterial disease found in caribou and reindeer.

Hank has argued there's no proof the state's methods for preventing illness are any better than traditional practices, which can include leaving meat from sick animals on the tundra. But that may not matter when it comes to brucellosis, a state prosecutor argued Wednesday.

State health records show no documented cases of human deaths from brucellosis, which can cause mild to severe flu-like symptoms with body aches, fever and fatigue. Still, many people who contract the illness never know they've had it, testified Dr. Kimberlee Beckman, a wildlife biologist and state witness.

Detecting the illness in the animals is often next to impossible with the naked eye, she said. Of the five percent of the caribou herd in the Point Hope region thought to carry brucellosis, 80 percent of the animals will show no outward signs of illness and often may be the healthiest-looking animals within the group, Beckman said.

And even if the animals have brucellosis, the infected caribou are considered safe to eat because muscle meat is not where the bacteria lives. Unless the animals are contaminated by sloppy butchering -- spreading fluid from a wound, pus sack or swollen joint -- the meat will be disease-free, and cooking it will eliminate any risk of brucellosis or other illnesses altogether, she said.

But a cardiologist from Tennessee, flown to Point Hope to testify on behalf of the hunters, is unconvinced that encouraging hunters to expose themselves to diseased meat is a good idea.

"I would not want to be touching an animal that had brucellosis," Dr. Lewis Nunn testified.

Nunn caught brucellosis in the 1950s from a medical lab two days after a bacteria sample spilled, despite a thorough cleaning of the surfaces exposed to the disease. His fever spiked to 105 degrees, and of three medical students who caught the illness, one died, he said.

"The fact that the risk is low doesn't mean that it is inconsequential," Nunn testified.

Nunn compared the extreme measures trained medical professionals take to avoid infection when a biological hazard is present -- gloves, masks and protective clothing -- to the reality of what most hunters, with no academic training in medicine or disease, face when dealing with a potentially ill animal in the field.

"The bottom line is it takes a sophisticated judgment in diseased animals to know where to cut and what to do," he said. "Now, if the hunters have that, that would surprise me. Therefore, if a hunter came to me, my advice would be, if unprotected, leave that alone."

Nunn views brucellosis as a "clear and present danger," even if exists in low levels in a caribou herd, and called it an outrage "to demand that someone bring home an animal that was ill when he was neither prepared with equipment or knowledge to deal with that."

During a courtroom break earlier in the day and after listening to Dr. Beckman, Hank took a moment to chat with a village elder who was monitoring the proceedings.

"They're going to tell us if we find sick caribou, to take them home and cook them. Crazy, huh?" he said as the men shared a laugh of disbelief.