Valentine

among perfect hunters.

gjersy

Thats sad we never had CWD in 2 of the countys that i hunt, then last year a deer farm let a few deer escape. Guess what? They found CWD in his remaining fenced deer! Now there's a baiting ban here and who knows if CWD is spreading. Instead of banning baiting the DNR should've banned deer White-Tail high fence farming years ago.

Valentine

I just think it just is"trouble in River City" about an incurable disease for deer.

wild bill g

I think you guys are forgetting that CWD started in a government facility in Colorado. They were the ones who started the spread by dumping contaminated dirt off their property. When you think of the number of deer each state has these cases are small. Our Alberta government is having a fit and we only have maybe five hundred thousand deer in the whole province. Deer yard up in the winter is that not just the same as baiting.
I personally think a new approach to this disease needs to be found.

Oldtimr

The disease was at one time only found west of the Mississippi river. It was deer propagators that brought it east of the Mississippi. I never heard the government released it but the government didn't invent it. CWD is in the same family of diseases as Scabies in sheep and mad cow disease in cattle all spread by prions that are almost impossible if not impossible to destroy. They live in the soil and are taken up by the grasses and plants and are also in them as well in contaminated areas. The states east of the Mississippi had ample opportunity to stop the disease from spreading by banning the raising of captive bred cervids. a few did but the rest fiddled around while the fires of burning Rome moved towards them and then it is was too late. This is one of nature's solution to over population, nature doesn't differentiate between animals in the wild and animals in an enclosure in a situation that would be over population in the wild. Over population for a long enough period of time results in various diseases to cut back the numbers. The so called experts are saying that eating the diseased meat will not hurt you. I wonder how many of them have eaten any as a control experiment! These prion diseases have the scary habit of mutating to cross species lines, that is what happened in mad cow disease and it kills people in a horrible way and you can't cook the meat hot enough or long enough to kill the prions. I will not knowingly eat any meat from venison taken from an area known to have CWD nor will I hunt close to those ares or close to an area that had a deer or elk farming operation.

Champlain Islander

I agree 100% OT.

wild bill g

The thing I wonder about though is if over populationaids the disease Alberta should never have gotten it. Our deer population is minute compared to your states. The state of Texas has more deer than the entire country of Canada. We should not be having an issue with CWD but our F&W claim it is an epidemic. It just irritates me the way our province has slaughtered off our small population.
I believe there is more spreading it than just the deer. It has to be scavengers and predators more than the deer the way it jumps from area to area. Yet we have no bountyy on coyotes or any of the flying scavengers like Ravens and magpies and such.

Oldtimr

You do not understand. Over population is the initial cause f the disease, once the cat is out of the bag, such as moving infected deer from one place to the other, the deer either escape their enclosure or are freed on purpose the prions will be shed in urine and feces and they don't don't know the difference between an overpopulated herd and a healthy population.

wild bill g

Ok I undeestand that. However look at how many deer PA has look at the small amount of deer they found with it. It was stated they are checking road kills and hunter harvested deer and only found 22 animals wih it. That is a small amount compared to the deer population of the state which I think is over1 million deer. The disease is supposed to be spread through salia and bodly fluids. This why I believe that scavengers are spreading the didease more than the deer themselves. The first thing birds take from a road kill is the eyes which are full of fluid and who knows how far those birds will travel after that.
I don't know if the U.S. states are still doing culls or what approach they are taking now. All I no is that a lot of healthy deer have been killed to find a very few diseased ones. Hvae the number of infected deer grown or are the numbers staying the same. If they are not increasing it seems piontless to keep worrying so much and spending all this money on it. Poachers are killing more of our deer than CWD and there are not enough funds to fight them. The way they monitor this disease is like having the police record all traffic violations but never do anything to stop them. This seems to be a good project to employ government biologists but does little for the problem. How long have we known of CWD and what has really been gained in the battle against it. To me we are gaining nothing as the disease is still on the move.
I don't know if any one has ever thought of this but could our radical antihunting groups be spreading it around. Now this sounds stupid but think how hard would it be for them to take a road kill from one area to another. How would this work in their favor lets look at it. The deer is infected so the prions are now in the new area just happens this area allows baiting of deer. Now they start a new campaign to ban baiting it is already in effect isn't it. We as hunters are helping them with their job because we constantly bicker about different hunting styles.
Back to the topic the disease is here how bad is it really. Should we continue this approach that appears to be doing little or take this money and fight bigger problems.
I know there are concerns of people getting a mutation of this disease. However I think we are at a far higher risk of catching Lyme from our quarry than a mutation of CWD.