CWD Is Spreading Out of Control

[Okie Hog]

CWD is a wasting disease caused by prions. Prions are misfolded proteins that cause proteins in the brain to have the same misfolded shape. Mad cow disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans are caused by prions.

CWD in the US and Canada:

Expanding Distribution of Chronic Wasting Disease | U.S. Geological Survey (usgs.gov)

CWD is primarily spread to the wild deer population by deer that escape from "hunting ranches" and breeding facilities, deer rubbing noses through high fences and interstate transportation of infected deer. In a few states CWD is totally out of control. In some states infected deer herds at "hunting ranches" and deer breeding facilities are allowed to continue to exist. CWD will continue to exist in the soil at former hunting ranches and breeding facilities for many years after the deer are gone.

Some "hunters" willingly pay $10,000 or much more to kill grotesque pen raised bucks.

Texas "gets it" when it comes to dealing with CWD. The Texas emergency order regarding CWD:

"Discovered in 1967 at a government research facility in Colorado, CWD has spread throughout half the United States and four Canadian provinces. It reached Texas in 2012, first in a free-ranging mule deer herd in the Hueco Mountains near El Paso, then at a South Texas breeding facility three years later. It was quickly discovered in several other breeding facilities. In the nine years since the illness arrived here, CWD has been detected in 270 animals; nearly three-fourths were whitetails in captive breeding facilities.

This spring, wildlife scientists found new cause for alarm. For the first time in northeast Texas, a whitetail deer tested positive for CWD at a breeding facility in Hunt County, about fifty miles northeast of Dallas. Another nine cases were traced to a breeding operation in Uvalde County, a hundred miles west of San Antonio. Upon further testing, a total of at least 30 infected deer were found at six facilities, 25 at the Uvalde operation alone.

Neither the Uvalde nor Hunt County farms had imported any deer in recent years—they were both considered “closed herds”—so the vector by which CWD spread there was a mystery. According to True, ranchers who bought infected animals from the Uvalde operation were forced to kill not only those deer but their entire herds—hundreds of captive does and bucks, culled as a precaution.

“When there’s CWD detected on your farm, it’s a total wipeout,” said True, the owner of Big Rack Ranch, a two-thousand-acre breeding operation about an hour east of Dallas. According to True, about 10,000 captive deer have been killed because CWD was found in their pens. Some, he said, were breeding bucks valued as high as $250,000."

Texas Intensifies Its Fight Against “Zombie Deer Disease” – Texas Monthly

Became interested in this stuff after a distant cousin died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Years a distant female cousin asked what happened to Mike. When it told her what killed Mike she said: "My God, my Dad died of that disease". .

 

[phalanx]

Interesting article Okie. Thanks for posting. We've had it here in VA since 2009 and so far its been in 9 counties and last count we had 21 cases (2020 I think). Nasty disease and is why we can no longer use real deer urine here. To my knowledge we don't have any deer breeding farms like you speak of. Toytruck may see it in the counties he hunts in but so far it has not gone to the southern counties where I hunt. When the only solution is destruction of the herd the future does not look bright. Do you know of any research that is being done to control or eliminate it?

John

 

[Bushfire]

Interesting article Okie. Thanks for posting. We've had it here in VA since 2009 and so far its been in 9 counties and last count we had 21 cases (2020 I think). Nasty disease and is why we can no longer use real deer urine here. To my knowledge we don't have any deer breeding farms like you speak of. Toytruck may see it in the counties he hunts in but so far it has not gone to the southern counties where I hunt. When the only solution is destruction of the herd the future does not look bright. Do you know of any research that is being done to control or eliminate it?

John

No prevention or control measures short of severely reducing the numbers of deer in a population.

It started in high fence populations but once it gets into a wild population it multiplies and spreads.

 

[toytruck]

I have not seen CWD where I hunt, thank you Lord! Looking at the 2021 DWR hunting pamphlet CWD is in the Northern Shenandoah Valley counties.
It was also found in the Roanoke Valley area counties.
When I picked up a deer I killed last November from a processor, the co-owner told me she had just turned away a hunter from WV that wanted to bring a deer from there to be processed and prepared for a skull mount. CWD is in WV and deer are banned from there unless they are deboned. The skull is a big violation!
She said he got mad over being turned away! Just one case of how CWD is or can be spread.

 

[Okie Hog]

The first known case of CWD in PA was in a captive deer herd. "Canned hunts" and deer breeding are big business in PA.

The two cases of known CWD in OK were both in farmed elk herds. One case was in Lincoln county. The other case was at an elk breeding facility in Oklahoma county: The infected elk had been imported from Montana. That herd was destroyed by the US Dep't. of Agriculture.

Canned hunts and high fence hunting ranches are so popular in some states that politicians there won't do anything that would interfere with the status quo. One facility i read about held over 200 deer in an area of about five acres.

This is from Mountain Journal, a group that i often disagree with, but the article is factual:

Game Farms Should Warrant Greater Scrutiny In Age Of Disease Pandemics (mountainjournal.org)

 

[deermanok]

Unfortunately, it's all about the money.
I don't usually watch hunting shows but this past Sunday night I was channel surfing and watched a show about a deer farm in Texas, somewhere east of Dallas.
They were oohing and aahing about the big bucks. One of the deer sold at auction for a quarter million. Holy crap!
Deer hunting is big business in the US. Profit and greed are the drivers.
It's the folks like us that will ultimately pay the highest price in the long run.

 

[Decay]

It’s totally outta control in Wisconsin. It’s probably too late to do anything meaningful. Minnesota is considering legislature to shut down all the game farms in an attempt to slow the spread

 

[wildcat2]

We had one case here in my county in pa. It was a infective deer bought and brought in to a high fence shooting gallery. They need to shut down this practice. I don't know how they call it hunting. It will destroy our deer herd in time. Pa game commission put a zillion doe tags in the area,to take the heard down.but it could be to late.

 

[sam-arkie]

My best friend and running buddy is a large animal veterinarian, who after 30 years of being in pratice (95% cattle), switched jobs and went to work as a professor in the ag department of a college. He's researched everything he can find out about CWD because we, supposedly have a lot of it here in north Arkansas. His take on CWD is this, it's always been around and it'll always be here. We never knew about it before because we didn't know it existed and until it became known and developed testing for it had no way to find it. He says there are two types of places with CWD, those places that have it and know it and those places that have it and don't know it. I believe he's right. I saw deer 40 years ago with classic CWD symptoms and we just wrote it off to Blue tounge, Hemorrhagic Disease or vehicle hit. They died and the buzzards and coyotes ate them. Now we test them. What spurred the spread of known CWD cases more than anything else was when the government got involved and started throwing money at it. Now to keep the $$$ flowing the agencies and researchers have to find more and more CWD, so the can justify more money, that leads to finding more cases, which leads to more money, which..............see a trend here?

 

[rusticbob]

My best friend and running buddy is a large animal veterinarian, who after 30 years of being in pratice (95% cattle), switched jobs and went to work as a professor in the ag department of a college. He's researched everything he can find out about CWD because we, supposedly have a lot of it here in north Arkansas. His take on CWD is this, it's always been around and it'll always be here. We never knew about it before because we didn't know it existed and until it became known and developed testing for it had no way to find it. He says there are two types of places with CWD, those places that have it and know it and those places that have it and don't know it. I believe he's right. I saw deer 40 years ago with classic CWD symptoms and we just wrote it off to Blue tounge, Hemorrhagic Disease or vehicle hit. They died and the buzzards and coyotes ate them. Now we test them. What spurred the spread of known CWD cases more than anything else was when the government got involved and started throwing money at it. Now to keep the $$$ flowing the agencies and researchers have to find more and more CWD, so the can justify more money, that leads to finding more cases, which leads to more money, which..............see a trend here?

Sort of sounds like Covid, the more Covid deaths a hospital can record, the more money they get from the government!

 

[yoyodoc]

Sort of sounds like Covid, the more Covid deaths a hospital can record, the more money they get from the government!

I work in small hospitals. The gov't does a lot of stupid things with money, but my hospitals are not getting anything for reporting or recording covid deaths.

 

[Okie Hog]

IMO: It ain't always been there. The first cases of CWD in deer were found at a Colorado animal experiment station.

 

[Okie Hog]

Pa game commission put a zillion doe tags in the area,to take the heard down.but it could be to late.

This action is typical of politicians and bureaucrats that have no plan or clue about managing CWD. They are only capable of reacting to the next CWD horror story involving a shooting pen or deer breeding facility. They kill off the wild deer, outlaw feeders and deer urine.

 

[Ninering62]

Interesting article Okie. Thanks for posting. We've had it here in VA since 2009 and so far its been in 9 counties and last count we had 21 cases (2020 I think). Nasty disease and is why we can no longer use real deer urine here. To my knowledge we don't have any deer breeding farms like you speak of. Toytruck may see it in the counties he hunts in but so far it has not gone to the southern counties where I hunt. When the only solution is destruction of the herd the future does not look bright. Do you know of any research that is being done to control or eliminate it?

John

Thats very sad, I've heard mention of CWD a cpl times through the yrs, but I've never actually seen any deer with it nor had any friends or fam in 4 central east coast states see any deer with it. I hope some cure or treatment for it happens instead of destroying all of them.

 

[Okie Hog]

Deer hunting in Minnesota is trashed because of deer breeders.

Minnesota deer hunters are demanding that deer breeding and deer hunting facilities be shut down.

"Jul. 10—GRAND RAPIDS, Minn. — After the 2021 Minnesota Legislature adjourned earlier this month without taking major action to fight chronic wasting disease, the state's largest deer hunters' group is now pushing for an outright end to deer farms to stop the spread of the disease from captive deer into the wild."

Politicians in Minnesota steadfastly refuse to rein in the deer breeders. They continue to allow infected deer to be shipped to deer breeding/hunting facilities in the state and to other states:

"The effort comes after a case in Beltrami County this spring where a deer farm had multiple infected animals and had shared deer with a dozen or more additional farms in Minnesota and four other states. Moreover, dead deer from the Beltrami County herd were illegally dumped on public land where traces of the disease remain in the soil.

A representative of the Minnesota Deer Farmers Association did not immediately return requests to comment on the association's proposal. But deer farmers have said they are being unfairly targeted for a disease that is already spreading on its own in the wild."

Minnesota deer hunters group wants to end deer farming (yahoo.com)

"I hope some cure or treatment for it happens instead of destroying all of them."

There is no treatment for diseases caused by prions:

What Are Prions and Why Are They Dangerous? (ba-bamail.com)

 

[SupplySgt65]

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries are now asking for some deer heads/ skulls from fresh kills in NW Louisiana, looking for CWD.

 

[Auto-5]

A friend has a hunting camp and acreage in Huntingdon PA. CWD slowly crept toward his area and it is
now included in a CWD zone. He has let even nice bucks walk because of CWD. The butchers in the
area have stopped processing game and he is leery of consuming the meat or of sharing it with others.
A whole way of life is ending in rural PA and elsewhere.
We all need to educate ourselves and our friends to best understand how to slow this disease for which
there is no known cure.
The only answer maybe to eliminate all cervids from vast areas where CWD is now endemic. Let the land
heal itself over a number of years and then reintroduce healthy animals.
Drastic and perhaps impossible…

 

[yoyodoc]

A friend has a hunting camp and acreage in Huntingdon PA. CWD slowly crept toward his area and it is
now included in a CWD zone. He has let even nice bucks walk because of CWD. The butchers in the
area have stopped processing game and he is leery of consuming the meat or of sharing it with others.
A whole way of life is ending in rural PA and elsewhere.
We all need to educate ourselves and our friends to best understand how to slow this disease for which
there is no known cure.
The only answer maybe to eliminate all cervids from vast areas where CWD is now endemic. Let the land
heal itself over a number of years and then reintroduce healthy animals.
Drastic and perhaps impossible…

Drastic, yes. We must remember though that market hunting almost drove deer to the brink of extinction before WWI. Really, market hunting could extinguish just about any animal. Except the coyote.

 

[MrTom]

A few years ago the illustrious DNR here in Minnesota designated the SE zone an antler point restriction zone at the urging of a club of idiots who selfishly think that they should be offered the opportunity to take big racked bucks each year.. That meant that all deer wearing less than 4 point on at least one side were passed up. It also meant that many 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 year old bucks which WOULD have been taken during the season had to get the pass. Of course all these excess males flip-flopped the natural balance of male deer to female deer. Now, in the studies being handled by the DNR what shoul;d surface but finding that it's the male deer of breeding age that appear to be the primary carries of CWD. Male deer of at least 1-1/2 years old. Isn't it ironic that it is also the male deer which, during the rut, will travel miles and miles to breed, almost all of these males traveling well into areas where they did not consider a home territory.

Here in SE Minnesota CWD is spreading a couple counties per year. The wholesale slaughter of the deer herd where CWD exists has been utilized but considering how well Wisconsin's similar shooting gallery worked to control the disease a few years prior, I am a proponent of letting nature take care of itself. Given the breadth that this disease has embedded itself here and in Wisconsin and Iowa, one finds it hard to imagine why any DNR would support something like antler point restrictions and foster a deer herd with a lopsided male/female ration when the disease was just getting a foothold in two small counties 10 years ago. With covid the APRs have been vacated for the last two seasons but after 8 years of flooding the herd with males capable of transmitting the disease WIDELY, the damage has been done.

If any of you live in areas where APRs have been put in place and there has been any mention of cwd in the natural deer herd, I would urge you to be in touch with your legislators and raise absolute hell to get those restrictions lifted, post haste. Its my contention that way6 to many dnrs are staffed by book- smart, brain- dead people who fall prey to the influences of the almighty $$$ that lobbies for special hunting interests throw around. Pressure your law makers as they have more ability to pressure the dnr than a single voice. Two things about cwd piss me off to no end. One: the dnrs trying to fixing something that isn't broken with aprs and the dnrs not fessing up to their screw-ups when aprs cause an explosion of disease when the disease could have been easily controlled with intensive, un-restricted by limits, buck hunting.

Game farms also come to mind here but in Minnesota about as soon as cwd was found in a north central area legislation on game farm must do's was immediate. Today's cwd spread in Minnesota is NOT caused by game farms. Its being spread by too many breeding aged bucks that came from aprs. This may be happening in your state too.

 

[ENCORE50A]

................................... Now, in the studies being handled by the DNR what shoul;d surface but finding that it's the male deer of breeding age that appear to be the primary carries of CWD........

Not sure what's wrong with the DNR??? Here in northeast MI with the bTB problem, the DNR also recognized that BUCKS were the primary carriers of bTB from an infected herd to a healthy herd, which then becomes infected.
Yet........... the bone heads still wanted to try an APR in the area. The rate of bTB sored and they had to stop the APR's as they were.