It was bound to happen sooner or later. The Mississippi River is not that big a barrier. It should be alarming to know that the new Wi DNR administration is looking to scale back (if not eliminate) all CWD control efforts. Those who hunt in Iowa should also be concerned.
http://news.dnr.state.mn.us/index.php/2011/01/21/preliminary-test-identifies-cwd-positive-wild-deer-in-southeast-minnesota/
Hey Bud,
They had a captive elk herd in Pine Island that got infected by CWD. They ended up killing all the elk on that farm and all the deer they could. I believe this was a case of the deer mixing with those elk. I do not think it came over from Wisconsin.
You are correct. But there is still the possibility of that happening.
What ever happened I hope they get handle on it quick. Very nasty stuff it devastated the herds along the front range here.
I met a guy from Casper WY last year that said the same thing, CWD wiped out the deer herd there too. But you can't convince hardly anyone in WI that this will happen. We have hunting organizations here that say it's been out west for 30 years and it hasn't caused a problem, even though that's completely false. These guys are calling for a rollback of CWD containment efforts because they don't like the regulations. They only care about today, not the future.
It comes here and I am done deer hunting my luck tends to run "not so good" I'll be the first human to catch it
i thought brett favre brought cwd to MN??
Thats really too bad, like your freind said it has been here for thirty years and the herds are starting to make some headway. Alot of folks say it can not transfer to humans but there has been some suspious brain disorders in humans over the years, I wont trust it...get every animal I harvest tested.
To find out more about this topic and the planned response from the MN DNR see this link:
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/mammals/deer/cwd/index.html
It wasn't just CWD that desimated the Deer herds in CO in an effort to control the disease, which at the time they did not know nearly as much about, the idea was to wipe out the Deer herds to eliminate the infected animals and then let them re populate, the DOW took out alot of animals as well.
That was not the case in Wyoming. They didn't do any eradication, and the deer population crashed. There is no easy answer, unless you hold out hope for the vaccine they are working on. But, for that to be economical the area of infection has to be manageable. You couldn't treat an entire state. It's best to control it for the time being, until more is known. That was the goal in WI.
The big question to me is how can the states accept the practice of "farming" deer and elk in light of everything that IS known?? It makes me sick to think that captive deer breed for the entertainment of lazy, rich wanna be hunters are more important than the wild populations. Something is seriously wrong with this picture!!!
I agree Whip. It's a sad day when hunting comes down to high tech hunting to kill something bigger off a farm instead of going out scouting and finding a good spot without the help of feeders and trailcams. I'm not codemning all of it but its not for me. I like the old way of using what has been passed down to me and what I've acquired from experience on my own. Sorry about my rambling,nuff said.
In light of the disease potential, I would agree with Joe. It is a scary thing to think of the possibility of an annual escalation of disease, wiping out herds of many different species of North American game.
Having been raised in a hunting family, I would echo "hitman" above - I don't feel it is my place to condemn or even criticize another mans view of hunting.
Never have had the desire to hunt caged animals tho....guess it is the "hunt" I hunt.
I think that Whip is right !
I also think if there was money in chronic wasting disease, The state of Wisconsin and all the other states would be jumping in on it for the fed $$$$$$ !
Carl
I just found this thread, and I'm not surprised. Seems like it was a matter of time.
It is unfortunate, and could have an impact on many folks in this state, if more positives are found.
+1 on WHips comments
My take is I'm not so sure about this whole CWD epidemic. It's been around since the 60s and I think it's been all over since maybe the 80s. The histeria and panic it brings may infact be unwarranted. Culling of deer herds etc. They just started testing recently to see it's in other locations. The prions are believe there called can sit dorment for 20 years then when injested by another critter they become active and destroy the brain tissue. I think they should spread it around the Middle East to help solve our international problems!
CWD was first discovered East of the Mississippi in WI. The thought is, it came from the West of the Mississippi. Why would anyone think it was spread back West of the Mississippi from the East after already existing in the West?
They found it in Oneida NY 2 or 3 years ago. Perhaps Favre brought it to NY also :readit: :readit: :bigsmyl: so it isn't all bad.
Everyone assumes CWD outbreaks come from game farms. I read an interesting article back when the WI outbreak was discovered. The authors theory was that Quality Deer Management could be at fault. The epicenter of CWD in WI west of Madison was the pioneering area of QDM in the state. The author had talked to farmers in the area who had supplemented deer diets with feed. Often the lowest cost feed contained lots of bone meal. The bone meal comes from slaughtered sheep, cows, etc. This bone meal can often come from other countries where other prion diseases like scrapie in sheep and of course mad cow disease may not be as well tested for and controlled. The theory was prion infected bone meal could cause prion disease in deer. Nothing proven of course but very interesting. The author added that the first discovered outbreak in nothern CO/southern WY 30 some years ago could have come from scrapie infected sheep and deer sharing summer range.
Clark,
Very interesting and sounds quite logical. Feed may be how it is so easily spread over 1000 miles seemingly overnight.
Personally I dont care where it came from although it would be nice to know for the sake of science.
Whip, at least to me, is spot on. MONEY and deer hunting just don't seem to mix. Far to many rich so called hunters just in it for the rack and not the hunting sport. Each to their own, but my 2cents is more sport and less money.
That is a bummer. Here in Oregon, it has depleted the Blacktail herd by about 1/3 and that is devistating to what was about 400,000 animals.
The Columbian Whitetail don't seem to be as affected by CWD or the Lice.
I blame the wolves! just kiddin, In this case I would bet that it was spread by the elk farm across the hi-way!
I gotta say that I agree with Whip as well.
We here in Colorado have been dealing with it as long as I have been old enough to hunt.Unfortunatly there it still is.
I hope and pray that they can figure out a way to get it fixed but it still doesn't stop me from going up in an effort to harvest Game. There is quite a bit of info on CWD on Colorado DOW web page.
High elk the first case to show up was in Fort Collins Co., thats where it originated
. Whip , we had a scare in Ny about 3 yrs ago , an infected Whitetail was purchased and brought in , all animals were terminated , but for at least 2 yrs I believe one county had all harvest checked by the DEC before consuming those animals - everything is back to normal now . Also those animals weren't in an enclosed hunting enclosure -they were just raised for the meat for sale down state in the Big Apple .
Yes but they were still on a farm which seems to be the consistent theme. They have repealed the mandatory carcass testing in Oneida county, for now i believe we got lucky.
I've known about CWD since the early 1990's, mainly because I hunted Colorado and always had in interest in wildlife disease (almost a major in college). CWD was the worst thing to find east of the Mississippi.
All indications are still that CWD can wipe out a deer population. This isn't a normal disease, the body has no defenses, in fact the body doesn't even know it's infected. Stanley Prusiner won the Nobel Prize for medicine by proving that a non-living protein (prion) can cause an infection. This was a huge discovery that no one thought possible. No normal disease is 100% fatal, but this one is.
It may not be transmittable to humans, but it will have an impact on hunting. We know a lot more on how it affects white-tailed deer (the most susceptible of all the deer species) since it was found in WI because of the increased research. We now know that it is spread orally, which includes baiting and feeding.
It can reduce deer densities to the point hunting is no longer needed, or even permissible. But it's a slow disease, and this may take 30+ years or more. Western states are just starting to see this happen.
Bucks have a higher prevalence rate than does, since they are exposed to more urine during the rut. What this means is that even if it doesn't wipe out a population, it will take out bucks before they reach prime trophy age. How ironic is that for QDM? And the rate is related to deer densities. One game farm in WI that was depopulated (outside the CWD zone, so it came to the farm by moving deer) had a 75% infection rate (might have been higher as this is from memory). I think wild mule deer on the front range are approaching 45% infection rates a few years ago.
To deny that it's not a problem for hunting is just short sighted, and total contrary to the research . What gets me are these game farm addicts like Allen Warren who say we have to stick together to protect the future of hunting. IMO we need to ban game farms to do just that.
Yahderehey, you're on the right track. I can't prove it either, but this is what I've been told from people in the know, i.e., regulators and game managers (and they will not say this openly). QDM did play a role in bringing the disease to Wisconsin, but not likely in the feed folks put out in the early QDM areas. Rather, it was trucked in from a game farm in Alberta in the form of a few large Alberta bucks to improve the genetics in the QDM area. State DNR and Dept. of Ag officials have a pretty good idea who did it, when and where, but for some reason they can't or won't prosecute. In fact, there is probably no way to prosecute because at the time it was done, there was no law against it. Another case of man tampering with mother nature with disastrous results.
First known case was found in 1967 in Fort Collins Co. in a Mule deer that was held in a captive research facility . First wild case was found in a Mule deer in 1987 in again Fort Collins Co. so there ya go - 20 yrs from captive to the wild . But nobody really heard about it till it was out(87) and spreading to this day .