I don' t think anybody is trying to say anything, except that they don' t currently know how far deer roam. Finding out can give a clue how to prevent the spread of CWD.

There is no doubt that CWD has been around at least since the 1960' s. But, it has just recently shown up in many new areas. Has it always been in those areas, and we are just now discovering it? Or, has it been recently transmitted to those areas? Study of deer habits can give us a clue which is the case.

As for Illinois, this past deer season IDNR took about 4,000 deer heads from hunter killed deer in 36 counties distributed across the state. The last I heard 3 of those tested positive, which brought the total known infected deer to 7, all of which have been located in the northern part of Illinois.

Given that we know there are infected deer in that area, I think it would be useful to know how far we can expect those animals to travel. That would give us an idea how fast this thing can be expected to spread.