interesting CWD article from Wisconsin

[Ridgeratt]

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/chronic-wasting-disease-wisconsin-deer-humans/


Article exceeds the posting limit for characters.

[Sandberm]

That's a long read, I will have to finish it later.

 But, from what I did read, 60% of deer in Wisconsin have CWD? 7000+ deer with CWD are consumed by humans every year? Those people might be considered as part of an experiment on what it does to humans.

[baldopepper]

I've seen what it does to a herd.  It'll be interesting to see how aggressive Washington gets on it. Hopefully the hunting public will cooperate in any way we can. This stuff is real and it can be devastating.

[Ridgeratt]

I've let a good 4x4 cruise thru the pasture for the last couple of days. Not sure I want to have my wife and I be part of the of test group.

[dilleytech]

I've let a good 4x4 cruise thru the pasture for the last couple of days. Not sure I want to have my wife and I be part of the of test group.

You don’t have to be. Get the animal tested before you eat it. Or join the million others who have eaten it without issues.

[baldopepper]

Whether you eat it or not is secondary to helping track and slow its spread.  Some seem to think this is some type of anti hunting or passing disease that is over exaggerated.  Ask any one who hunted some of the southeast units of Utah what it did to those herds. They were virtually wiped out!  If you are truly an avid big game hunter you'd be wise to take this stuff seriously.

[Stein]

The consensus I have seen is that it hasn't made the jump to humans yet, but may in the future.  A similar disease in cows, mad cow disease, DID make the jump to humans by mutating into Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

So, it isn't a problem to humans until/when/unless it mutates into something that can harm people.  If that does happen, it's very likely to be nearly 100% fatal and horrible.

Early on, it seemed like most medical/state sources said there was little to no risk in eating CWD infected meat.  Now, most of those sources are not recommending eating it.  This may be due to a change in thinking or simple CYA, nobody knows.  I haven't seen anything on the likelihood of it mutating, how long that may take or any other indication of if it will even ever happen.  It seems nobody knows.

I won't eat any myself or feed any to my family or friends.

Regarding the article, it seems the only effective solution is to kill all the deer in an area that is infected as well as a buffer zone.  For migrating mule deer, I'm not sure how that would work.  For whitetail, maybe but the optics of slaughtering hundreds or thousands of deer and completely wiping out the population in an area isn't very palatable.

I would be surprised if WDFW did anything other than testing, recommendations and laws around transport of bones, brains and spinal columns.  It's fairly obvious the current commission will simply shut down hunting if they can justify it's necessary to preserve viable herds even if hunting could help.

[Special T]

Wisconsin and Minnesota universities have both done extensive studies on the issue. Cwd will spread like a forrest fire with spot fires jumping ahead of the line when sportsmen take deer out of the area.

Expect baiting to go away even tho the banning of baiting g has not slowed the spread in other states. This is a convenient e case for the commission.  Also expect permit only for mule deer and elk. They seem less effected by cwd than whitetail but it's a great cover up excuse to hide the rapid predation on them.

[baldopepper]

It's as brutal on Mule deer as it is on whitetail, particularly when long migrations end up in the same general wintering area.  Predators in Utah did very well in the heighth of the disease.  Plenty of dying and dead deer to make life easier for them, and then more pressure on the survivors trying to repopulate the units. Unfortunately the disease does not spread to carnivores.

[Ridgeratt]

I've let a good 4x4 cruise thru the pasture for the last couple of days. Not sure I want to have my wife and I be part of the of test group.

You don’t have to be. Get the animal tested before you eat it. Or join the million others who have eaten it without issues. 



Yet

Or it could be just a ticking time bomb.