BSK
Well-Known Member
The main reason for keeping an eye on EHD deaths is for those who are trying to manage their local deer herd. If you know a big die-off has occurred in your area, you can adjust harvest goals accordingly.
Keep an eye out for EHD
- Thread starter BSK
- Start date
backyardtndeer
Well-Known Member
Figure it is going to be a bad year here. Been seeing a lot of buzzards circling low lately. Most that I am seeing are low over neighboring properties. I have been all over my place this past weekend and didn't see or smell any.
killingtime 41
Well-Known Member
Tics will die this winter or fall.
Omega
Well-Known Member
Not sure about the attached ones, I have dressed some in very cold weather and the darn things are still moving.
BSK
Well-Known Member
Yup. Had them crawling all over my cleaning station in early December, even after hard freezes and the deer having hung in a cooler for two weeks.
@JCDEERMAN i have yet to see any or smell any dead deer around Coble in Hickman. I have however been seeing more deer than I have since 2014 or so. Lots of fawns and does, very active especially for some reason in the middle of the day on the very hot days. Not sure why, but the past two weeks we have seen a lot of flaws out running and jumping, playing like crazy in the fields and roadsides with mamas by their sides. I also saw my first set of TN twins yesterday on the way home from work…they darted right in front of my car on a curve and I barely missed the second!
BSK
Well-Known Member
So far, haven't found any dead deer in southwest Humphreys
JCDEERMAN
Well-Known Member
Good deal. I drove through Coble two weeks ago. My cousin just bought a place in that area. We went and loaded up on fruit and veggies at the mennonites, then went to see his new property. It's so good to see populations back to normal since the 2019 EHD die off. I'm seeing the same - Plenty of fawns, no dead deer, and I'm hoping that our local herd is mostly immune to it since it was just 3 years ago…..meaning the ones that survived were either fawns or adults that mostly overcame it.
TheLBLman
Well-Known Member
This past week I checked several ponds and creeks for dead deer in Stewart County.
Thought I had found one, but it turned out to be a dead racoon.
Knock on wood, so far, so good.
Thought I had found one, but it turned out to be a dead racoon.
Knock on wood, so far, so good.
Spent about an hour yesterday picking a deer biologist's brain about ehd and cwd. I was able to expand my knowledge a little about both topics. With the midge, they come from eggs laid in shallow muck around the edges, shoreline of ponds, creeks, muddy areas. The lowering of the water and drying of that muck is what brings about the hatch. Hotter and drier years exposes and drys more area therefore permitting a larger hatch and increasing the exposure to them. Many times deer approach water with their muzzle low and smelling / sampling the air as they go so the midge is inhaled and the sinus cavities do their job of filtering the air which lodges the foreign object in the mucus. From there we know what commonly happens.
My theory was to eliminate mud holes and stagnate areas in stream beds and making wildlife ponds deeper to be more fresh and learned that such practices may help but would be limited in doing so as every farm pond, stream bank and roadside ditch is a potential source. Fogging or spraying has not been studied beyond the knowledge that this would need to be very timely, repeated and would negatively effect other desired species.
My theory was to eliminate mud holes and stagnate areas in stream beds and making wildlife ponds deeper to be more fresh and learned that such practices may help but would be limited in doing so as every farm pond, stream bank and roadside ditch is a potential source. Fogging or spraying has not been studied beyond the knowledge that this would need to be very timely, repeated and would negatively effect other desired species.
BSK
Well-Known Member
EHD is a naturally occurring process, and part of "Nature's Way" of keep the species strong. And in the Deep South, where deer are exposed to EHD all the time every year, few deer actually die of it. EHD in these regions is so endemic that deer have become, through natural Selection, fairly immune to the disease.
What I'm getting at is, even if I could magically wipe away EHD, I would not. It sure is a pisser for us deer managers in areas where EHD outbreaks can hit hard, but it is part of the natural process.
CWD, considering it's somewhat man-made, is a different story. Although letting Nature take Her course is still the ultimate answer. Unfortunately, that will take a very, VERY long time. Much longer than our lifetimes.
Omega
Well-Known Member
I've never heard that CWD was man-made, or even man influenced, you have any links?
I too think nature has a way of keeping species in check, when a species gets beyond what she is willing to support, she culls them a bit.
BSK
Well-Known Member
CWD developed in a research facility in Colorado. The facility had been used to study Scrapie in sheep (Scrapie is Mad Cow Disease for sheep and has been around for over 1,000 years). Once the facility had been cleared of sheep, the facility was reused to hold Mule Deer for research. It was in this facility where a very high amount of Scrapie prions were present, that it jumped the species barrier to the Mule Deer. Not realizing the Mule Deer had contracted a prion disease, the Mule Deer were released back into the wild once the research project was over. And that is where CWD comes from. For many years it was isolated to just the area where the Mule Deer were released (CO and a corner of Wyoming and Nebraska). But once it jumped from Mule Deer to Whitetails it really exploded.
BSK
Not to argue but instead throwing out thoughts for a response. (Disclaimer; Highschool biology and life experience is the limit of my education other than a hunger for more information.)
Is the bent protein organic?
How was the specie jump made, via mutation or host adaptation?
Is the disease manmade or the specie jump and consequential spread facilitated / made possible by man
Whats the difference when compared to the human version CJD?
considering the time from exposure to symptomatic how far is the disease out in front of the testing? 25-35 miles, 35-50 miles or more?
Not to argue but instead throwing out thoughts for a response. (Disclaimer; Highschool biology and life experience is the limit of my education other than a hunger for more information.)
Is the bent protein organic?
How was the specie jump made, via mutation or host adaptation?
Is the disease manmade or the specie jump and consequential spread facilitated / made possible by man
Whats the difference when compared to the human version CJD?
considering the time from exposure to symptomatic how far is the disease out in front of the testing? 25-35 miles, 35-50 miles or more?
BSK
Well-Known Member
Prion-based diseases have been around longer than we have been able to understand them. The symptoms of Scrapie were described in early writings by sheep herders over 1,000 years ago in Europe. However, Nature has somewhat "worked it out" in sheep. We still have a lot of sheep in the world despite the fact there is no treatment for Scrapie.
No one knows the answer to that, but CWD is slightly different in the amino acid code of the protein from the Scrapie prion, just like MCD is different than naturally occurring CJD in humans, although all three diseases are caused by the same process. If a human catches CJD from eating beef infected with MCD, that can be determined by looking at the prions amino acid code and is called CJDv (the "v" for "variant"). Unquestionably, Scrapie made the jump to Mule Deer through natural mutation.
That is a question for the TWRA. I remember when CWD first spread into Canada and Wisconsin. The TWRA did quite a bit of testing across the state and found nothing. That's why it was so surprising that when it was found in SW TN, just how widespread it was. How did it spread so fast, considering it is not a highly contagious disease?
That's the human part. As a truck driver during the 80's and early 90's I saw trailer loads of young deer headed into the south out of the north and Midwest. I spent a lot of time between Chicago and Houston, Wisconsin and Dallas, everywhere north to atlanta. They were always headed south
BSK
Well-Known Member
It is virtually impossible to prove, as few if any records are kept on illegal or at least unethical behavior. But those of us who have worked in the deer management world know full well how CWD spread across the continent. It was a combination of the commercial elk farming business transporting sick animals around as well as the uneducated drive to "bring in better antler genetics," and the unscrupulous who fed off that viewpoint, transporting "breeder bucks" across the country that spread CWD.
I have zero doubt - ZERO doubt - that the massive CWD infection center in SW TN was purely man-made (human transportation and release of deer in the area).
Omega
Well-Known Member
I have my suspicions about the outbreak myself, but when I voiced my opinion early on it was highly contested. As to records, I see your point, and it also makes it difficult when everyone just looks the other way.
TheLBLman
Well-Known Member
Most probably, you are correct about the epicenter in SW TN.
But generally speaking, ZERO doubt might typically be incorrect
as to how it spreads around.
It "may" have come up to Henry County via a truck, but other possibilities may be more likely?
Then, nothing is keeping buzzards from eating a CWD-infected deer carcass on the west side of the TN River (Henry County), then pooping out those CWD prions on the east side of the TN River (Stewart Co.) the next day.
As I understand it, correct me if wrong, but the prions are pooped out by all scavengers which eat the CWD-infected deer. That would suggest one of the main "spreaders" of CWD becomes Wiley Coyote. But local buzzards may have a larger localized scavenging area than local coyotes, and buzzards are not hampered by the TN River.
