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Need sincere advice on CWD management.

ROB

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 23, 2000
Messages
2,438
Location
Murray, KY USA
My name is Robin Floyd. I have been on TNDeer over 25 years. When I joined, I lived in Martin, TN but for over 20 years I have lived in Murray, KY. I am friends with several folks on TNDeer. Heck, Ruger probably saved my life once when he helped me drag out a huge doe a quarter of a mile thru a muddy cornfield to my truck. I am currently the Kentucky Dept of Fish & Wildlife Commissioner for the !st Congressional District, the 14 western most counties in KY. We recently discovered our first case of CWD in Ballard Co, KY, in far northwestern KY, in my District, probably 50 miles from TN. Since the discovery of the CWD positive deer in Henry Co, TN 3 years ago, the 5 counties within 20 miles of where this deer was found (Fulton, Hickman, Graves, Calloway, & Marshall) have been in a Surveillance Zone, with restrictions on baiting & minerals, import & export of unprocessed deer, & mandatory check stations. I was born in Fulton, grew up in Hickman, hunt in Graves, live in Calloway, & work in Marshall, so I'm invested. These restrictions have been fairly well tolerated. Many turkey hunters want baiting banned anyway due to aflatoxin. We have several processors in the Surveillance Zone so that hasn't been a huge issue. The first year, we had 96% compliance with the in-person check stations which we tried to make as pleasant & as much like the check stations when I was a kid as possible. (We gave away free coffee, hats, & thermoses & encouraged hunters to socialize & see what other hunters had harvested. There are no old country stores left but we had most of these check stations at processors where a lot of people were coming anyway.) KDFWR has always used the more accurate 2-step testing, BTW.

I recently read on the Tennessee Deer Hunters page that well over 90% of their members disagree with TN's CWD management plan. I am asking for advice because KDFWR need to put together a management plan that most of our hunters will go along with. We have to have hunter buy-in because deer hunters manage the deer. Thru surveys and a recent in-person CWD forum where the positive deer was harvested (a 2 1/2 y/o buck that was tending a doe.), we have learned the following:

1. Hunters want to be given the opportunity to manage any overpopulation first. If an area has too many deer, hunters want the first opportunity to rightsize the herd. If an area isn't overpopulated, they want the seasons to stay as they are. I agree with this.

2. Hunters are not in favor of killing all the deer to save the deer. The cure doesn't need to be worse than the disease. They especially don't want targeted removal in Jan & Feb where snipers kill shed bucks & pregnant does. also agree with this.

3. They don't want another modern firearm season. Right now, our modern firearm season is peak of the rut for 16 days. This is when the huge majority of our harvest occurs. Traditionally, are seasons have been set to maximize herd health & hunter opportunity. We now have over 1 million animals in our deer herd. We also have significant agricultural damage by deer in my district, a fact we can't ignore. If deer are harvested due to depredation, KDFWR has been successful in taking refrigerated trailers for those deer which have then been donated to Hunters for the Hungry, rather than wasted.

4. Some hunters have proposed expanding a early season (Early Youth & Early MZ) from 2 days to 9 with adult hunters being able to use pistols, slugs, & straight wall cartridges as well as archery & MZ in order to create more opportunity for youth & for mentors to hunt at the same time as youth. We have tons of deer so that would in no way hurt the resource.

The KDFWR Commission, of which I am a part, will almost certainly expand the Surveillance Zone to include Ballard Co & the 2 counties next door, for a total of 8 Surveillance Zone Counties, with the same restrictions as the original 5 SZ counties. Our goal is to slow CWD. We are well aware that eradication is unlikely, although that apparently did happen in NY. We know that the impact of CWD isn't catastrophic due to the up to two year time between a deer becoming infected & becoming sick. (We know EHD kills many more deer & much faster than CWD.) We also have to take into consideration the impact of CWD on people. Outfitters, guides, land owners, processors, and others who make their living from deer hunting have asked that we try to contain CWD down here in the far western part of the state.

Now here is where I need your help. Obviously, this is a controversial & complex issue. If you have a good understanding of CWD and it's social implications, I would welcome any advice of suggestion you might have. Please only comment if you're trying to help. I've already heard all the noise that CWD is not real, It's a hoax, nothing can be done, money grab, government conspiracy theory, etc. All 9 members of our Commission are decent men who grew up hunting & fishing. We all serve without a salary or any perks whatsoever. We were all appointed by the Governor but I've never met him & certainly never contributed to him. He's a city guy & hunting, fishing, & conservation aren't even on his radar screen. Finally, KY has received no huge grants to study CWD because we haven't had it until just this deer season.

I believe most people that hunt & fish have pretty good common sense. My only desire is to see hunters get the the first chance to manage this problem.

Thanks
 
I am currently the Kentucky Dept of Fish & Wildlife Commissioner for the !st Congressional District, the 14 western most counties in KY. We recently discovered our first case of CWD in Ballard Co, KY, in far northwestern KY, in my District, probably 50 miles from TN.

Rob, kudos to you for actually asking other "invested" sportsmen their thoughts.
May take me a while to provide my input, but just want you to know I'm working on it.

Like you, I am personally "conflicted" with the reality we seem on one hand trying to protect the resource, while on the other hand we may be helping more to destroy it. The "resource" is not just the standing deer herd, but the heritage of deer hunting, and even hunting in general.

It can not be emphasized enough that everything effects everything, and with every decision to change something, there are often unintended, unexpected, too often negative consequences. My hope is the State of Kentucky can learn much from both the mistakes and the successes of other states' dealings with CWD.

I wish more of our TN commissioners would more proactively seek thoughts from all invested sportsmen before they do much of what they have done, much of which have been debacles.
 
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My only desire is to see hunters get the the first chance to manage this problem.
Guys, Rob speaks his truth here.
He's genuine.
Now here is where I need your help. Obviously, this is a controversial & complex issue. If you have a good understanding of CWD and it's social implications, I would welcome any advice of suggestion you might have. Please only comment if you're trying to help.
 
Rob, I wish you the best, CWD is a no win deal. I hunt Ames which is in the middle of CWD zone of Fayette and Hardeman counties in West TN. There are really only two approaches to managing CWD, one is hands on and the other hands off! The hands on approach seems to be more scientific and appropriate to slow the spread but doesn't sit well with hunters. The hands off approach just lets nature run its inevitable course.

I've personally seen what it does to a deer herd once it gets established. To quote a well know CWD researcher, Dr Elizabeth Williams. " Cut wider and deeper than you think necessary. Once CWD gets established you will have it for a very long time".
 
I'm not much help, but if I was a hunter in your zone I'd want to see baiting outlawed just to decrease congregation of deer. Outside of that, I agree with Steven. If your hunters are happy now just keep on keeping on. I hunt in a CWD county, although my area hasn't had a confirmed positive that I'm aware of yet. We haven't made any changes whatsoever and don't intend to for the foreseeable future. It's easy for me to say this because I'm not in a highly impacted zone like Fairchaser, but I just don't think it's as big a deal as the state of TN has made it out to be. Until a cure can be found I just don't see a way we can do anything outside of simple common sense regulation like transport restrictions to have a significant impact on slowing the spread.
 
Rob, good luck with your endeavor and THANK YOU for asking for input. Born in Paducah, lots of family in Ballard, McCracken & Calloway, aunt & cousin were postmasters in Kirksey. One of uncles farms joined Ballard Refuge & had lots good hunts there!
Have had a place in Wayne CO, TN for 22 years and have watched CWD steadily marching our way. No matter what TWRA does, I'll not slaughter the deer on our 3500 acres. Hunted lots of states in mid west & west where CWD has been prevalent for a long time, CO since '79. IMO, testing, monitoring & adjusting based on YOUR data is key. Add a couple more weeks to one or more of your seasons and you'll double your data w/o hurting your herd.
 
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IMO what you're doing here is the best approach you can take, but with the license holders of KY. Open a transparent line of communication with KY's hunters to keep them updated as well as allow for hunter input to help formulate the plan to deal with it. Nobody is more vested in caring for the herd than the hunters.

Reach out to and work closely as you can with all the CWD researchers so you can be up to speed with the most current science, and be sure it's wide open available for the hunting public so they know what you know. The more minds with that knowledge, the better the odds someone will figure a creative solution.

I understand it may be like herding cats but it's necessary to keep hunters' faith that their agency has their interest at heart.

However it goes I sincerely with you luck.
 
Have a reactive approach to dispatch sick deer. A committed team to dispatch sick deer. I have yet to see or hear of a sick cwd in west TN and I hunt 50-60 sits per year in the epi center of cwd. TN has taken a proactive approach with liberal doe/buck limits and limitless depredation permits. A brain abscess in bucks caused from fighting resemble same symptoms! So do not eliminate the herd until you have multiples of sick deer showing symptoms in a particular area. I believe nature will take care of nature as with CWD.
 
Rob, I wish you the best, CWD is a no win deal. I hunt Ames which is in the middle of CWD zone of Fayette and Hardeman counties in West TN. There are really only two approaches to managing CWD, one is hands on and the other hands off! The hands on approach seems to be more scientific and appropriate to slow the spread but doesn't sit well with hunters. The hands off approach just lets nature run its inevitable course.

I've personally seen what it does to a deer herd once it gets established. To quote a well know CWD researcher, Dr Elizabeth Williams. " Cut wider and deeper than you think necessary. Once CWD gets established you will have it for a very long time".

Did you see herd damage before or after cwd was discovered?
 
Rob, glad to hear y'all aren't just jumping on the bandwagon and opening up more days of rifle season. Hopefully y'all don't ever do that.

Not sure why I didn't receive a survey this year but I did get to see one that was sent to a buddy of mine. Asking if someone would be in favor of opening up their private land to volunteers or state employees to eradicate deer blew my mind. I get why it was asked but hopefully it was just a feeler to see what kind of feedback y'all would get, and I hope it was all very negative.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist by no means, but hearing ones say they'll certainly find cwd this year in Ky since it's the last year of testing and then it coming true sure would make someone think on that if they got to thinking too hard. Then just so happening to be found from a county that wasn't even in the surveillance zone.

I don't have your answers you want and can't give much feedback as the best route to go. But in my opinion eradicating deer to stop cwd isn't the way to go. Some will live with it, some will die of it, and life goes on.

The Western states didn't do anything drastic and they have rebounded. I'd be willing to say probably 50-75 percent of the deer in TN that are killed and tested positive had gotten cwd and beat it.

Thank you for asking for opinions and feeling like us KY hunters and landowners have a voice in the matter!
 
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@ROB
I have read everything I can find on on CWD, I have a grandson that was incorrectly diagnosed with CJD 15 years ago and that is when my reading began. I currently care for property in Trigg county KY and Eastern Stewart County TN, both like most of your area are over populated.
My understanding of the prion condition leads me to believe that there is no ridding ourselves of it. I believe the prion is not damaged but rather deformed during creation, a condition more likely caused by environ originally but leaving us with the practically everlasting replicates waiting in the environment for the opportunity to continue replicating. Some will be buried, some will end up in places not accessible by cervids so in theory a percentage remain on the landscape for an undetermined period. I do understand they are also passed by social contact and breeding activity. I am convinced this is not a new condition but rather a very old one that exists in nature and rears its ugly head when conditions like overpopulation exist. I do not feel that we can ever rid ourselves of this plague until the herd is not overpopulated and hopefully there is an element of immunity to continue with.
I do not believe you can eradicate the problem by killing off the herd rather part of the answer lies in

1. continue current harvest seasons
2. place additional hunts or dates for hunters, youth, handicapped wherever and whenever possible Use these to educate and inform the hunting public.
3. manage the herd not the prion, the species will survive.
4. Place transport rules and make the fines unbearable.
5. Communicate, communicate, communicate. Do not leave us out of the loop
6. set and enforce rules on deer farms requiring them to remove any fence threats, double fence and each must have a proper disposal facility on site. Make their license unaffordable and fines for violation even moreso. Require that all deer leaving deer farms be dead, processed and packaged for consumption. I have no concern about the survival of such facilities
7. Send agents / biologists to local functions like NWTF chapter banquets to speak, provide update, inform.
8. do what you will about baiting, between mineral licks and feed troughs used by farms it makes little difference. you have 1/3 of hunters that will bait irregardless, 1/3 that will follow the law and the 1/3rd that didnt bait to start with. Many homeowners bait for viewing and are completely unaware of our plight, if you stop baiting it must be across the board but i am not sure it will make that big of a difference.
9. If their is hope for an immunity or resistant cervid, do not risk killing it trying to stop the prion.
10. Carry on and please keep us informed.
 
Keep on keeping on. You will lose hunter support if you start trying to annihilate the deer herd.
This is probably the best advice your going to get. It's already there and it's already in the soil. What else can be done except destroying the hunting experience much like Tn has already done in unit CWD.
 
Your going to get hammered no matter which direction you decide to go, good luck. there is a lot of unknown about this disease but more experts on it than can be counted. Time will tell.
 
Managers are not going to stop the spread of cwd. Killing everything in an area is certainly not the answer. Have to agree with whoever said keep on keeping on. Encourage testing and get input from hunters in those areas. Good luck.
 
My understanding is a deer can live up to two years after getting CWD....so a 1½ year old can live to 3½ and 2½ year old can live to 4½ and so on. So if not slaughtered by us trying to fix this, how different does the herd look? Less 5½ and 6½ yo? Possibly yes...but that class of buck is already rare to actually see?

I agree with Popcorns staement "manage the herd not the prion, the species will survive".
My understand is that near the center of the TN CWD epicenter that an aggressive doe harvest program was implemented before CWD was discovered so I would expect numbers to be dramatically lower with high doe harvest, extended season and CWD itself.

So manage the herd not the prion. Ecourage and assist land owners with improving habitat...educate landowners on the importance of good fawning cover. Reward landowners that manage predators. Stop concentrating deer around bait piles....create field edge feathering and native warm season grass incentives...I could go on and on...so in short I guess my suggestion would be to manage for a healthy herd through habitat improvements and in turn give deer the best chance possible to survive and flourish...dont hammer them during a time where they are already facing enviromental challenges. Manage the habitat - Manage the herd - be open and communicate.
 
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