RE: CWD-SPREAD BY SALIVA-BE CAREFUL
Very informative. But let's not ignore key words like "probably". Also "Studies would indicate". Fact is, the science community just does not know how it is transmitted, and why it's only in deer and elk. New hunt areas here in Wyoming far from known infected areas are still being discovered. Moose and Antelope still don't get it. AND . . . there is still no eveidence that humans can contract"variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease" from infected animals. (The human version of "mad-cow")
However, free testing can probably be found in your neck of the woods before eating the animal.
Our G&F recommends the following precausions when handling a suspected infected animal:
Wear rubber or latex gloves as a routine precaution when field dressing.
- Minimize handling of brain and spinal tissues and wash hands afterward.
- When butchering, meat should be boned out.
- Do not eat the brain, spinal cord, eyes, spleen or lymph nodes of harvested animals.
- Hunters should not harvest or eat wild animals that appear sick.
When's the last time you had a good bowl of deer eye soup?
I remember talking to a G&F biologist a couple years ago and she told me they tested some infected deer at a facility here only to discover that when they took the dead animals out, the deer they put in the same pen also contracted the disease. No saliva there.
So don't be afraid of CWD, just try to understand it.