More CWD Positives

[TN Whitetail Freak]

Good grief! Evidently this disease has been here awhile and somebody dropped the ball on the field sample testing. It would not surprise me if they already knew it was there before this year.

When all is said and done, I expect it to have originated at that high fenced farm.

Perhaps they should have extended the longer season and testing to the other border counties too.

Why do you think they recently started in on those cervid import restrictions? Makes it appear they where ahead of the game but the disease still won. That way the public cannot say they did nothing.

 

[MUP]

It cuts both ways. If you go in and exterminate 100 deer, 70 might be negative and you've angered the hunters paying the tab. You may have temporarily won the battle but lost the war. Just doesn't seem to be worth it. If you could stop it that way it would be worth it but you can't.

This makes sense to me as well. Just a waiting game until more research comes up with something to combat the disease or its ability to transmit. IMO.

 

[JCDEERMAN]

Another odd thing to me is that no one on this forum, that I've read at least, has reported any deer with physical signs of the disease.

Some of us in the hot zone have more than one example. This is the first buck I seen from the stand during bow season. He was at 12 yards and looked eerily poor, having just shed his velvet, his antlers were covered with blood, and his ribs were visible through his skin. I estimated him to be a shooter, but could not get past all of the blood on his antlers, and how poor he looked, so I just watched him. After watching him for a few minutes, he glanced up at me in the tree, and eventually turned and walked off to never be seen again.

End of August pics in velvet

First week of October pics, having just shed velvet.

You think he went downhill fast?



Here is another example of weird stuff happening to our deer herd. It may or may not be related to CWD, but still makes one wonder.

Dec. 1 pic

Dec. 13 pic

Here are some pics taken in the hot zone in early January, 2019. Again, maybe not CWD related, but more and more weird stuff and findings are out there it seems, compared to years past. Maybe coincidental, maybe not? The buck in top pic below was aged at 5.5+ by myself and TWRA.

Wow. Andy, thanks for sharing. Interesting for sure!

 

[th88]

Here is a link to the WSJ article to bypass their stupid pay-to-view concept.

https://outline.com/gqC6wh

 

[Andy S.]

Here is a link to the WSJ article to bypass their stupid pay-to-view concept.

https://outline.com/gqC6wh

Thanks for posting up for others to read, without paying for a subscription.

 

[BULL MOOSE]

Here is a link to the WSJ article to bypass their stupid pay-to-view concept.

https://outline.com/gqC6wh

Thanks for posting up for others to read, without paying for a subscription.

Two things that I got out of reading the article:
Officials plan to cull deer.
Processor will not process deer from infected counties....the problem is that his county is now in the zone.

 

[Omega]

Here is a link to the WSJ article to bypass their stupid pay-to-view concept.

https://outline.com/gqC6wh

Thanks for posting up for others to read, without paying for a subscription.

Two things that I got out of reading the article:
Officials plan to cull deer.
Processor will not process deer from infected counties....the problem is that his county is now in the zone.

Don't take that article to heart, it also states TN banned deer meat importation from CWD regions, which isn't true.

 

[TDW05]

And that it's only in 26 states....it's in every single state, just haven't tested enough.

 

[TDW05]

https://www.qdma.com/this-cwd-map-spell ... r-hunting/

 

[TDW05]

It shows that I think it was 32,000 deer killed in Wisconsin by people from every state besides Delaware. Pretty scary for the herd everywhere.

 

[duckduck84]

.....our land is literally surrounded by CWD positives and we haven't had any deer test positive.

Sample size? Age of deer tested?

..... rapidly growing as some people believe.

I do not believe it is rapidly growing per se, but I do believe it has been in the hot zone for several years. I also believe it is very established in the hot zone and not much we as hunters can do, but learn to live with, and accept the new norm, whatever that new norm may look like down the road. The new norm being what 2019 season looks like compared to what it once looked like, say 5 years ago.

Andy, we killed 11 deer this year from different spots on our 250 acres right off of HWY 18 north of Grand Junction. I know at least 7 of those have been tested. All negative, except my last buck I'm waiting on. All of the deer have been between, what I would guess, is 1.5-3.5 years old.

 

[BigAl]

Understand, that is very close to what was done in Fayette-Hardeman-McNairy Counties.

I don't think a complete cull was even considered or close to what happened in Fayette-Hardeman. Its my understanding the harvest was increased and season extended for 2 reasons, to increase the samping for testing, and to "thin" the herd from being so dense. Both of those counties are rural, high density counties that have a lot of deer. A few extra weekends of hunting in these unit L counties won't come close to culling the herd.

 

[Don'tDrinkTinks]

Management zone has expanded it seems. Looks like Shelby, Tipton, Chester, and Haywood have been added.

 

[Hunter 257W]

Understand, that is very close to what was done in Fayette-Hardeman-McNairy Counties.

I don't think a complete cull was even considered or close to what happened in Fayette-Hardeman. Its my understanding the harvest was increased and season extended for 2 reasons, to increase the samping for testing, and to "thin" the herd from being so dense. Both of those counties are rural, high density counties that have a lot of deer. A few extra weekends of hunting in these unit L counties won't come close to culling the herd.

I was wondering what Dave meant too about the 3 Tennessee counties with an extended season. I doubt a meaningful number of deer were killed during that time as far as a significant % of the total population. That is going to take some serious effort to kill off most of the deer in entire counties. Deer hunting is going to turn into hard work for whoever undertakes that job.

 

[Andy S.]

Management zone has expanded it seems. Looks like Shelby, Tipton, Chester, and Haywood have been added.

It has, and funny you mention this.

My mom, who knows very little about deer hunting other than I do it a lot, texted me this morning, and said she overheard some older gentlemen at McDonalds telling their friends "that darn CWD done made it to Tipton County". I am sure they were eluding to the fact Tipton County has been included in the CWD Zone due to proximity, even without a confirmed positive as of now.

 

[DaveB]

257W--

The rules for a 24 day extended season in Fayette Hardeman and McNairy county were 1 buck and no limit on does. I figure this was just to have as many doe killed as possible for survey purposes and not to cull the entire reproductive class. However, that is not the point. That complete cull is what TWRA asked for.

Correct, the likelihood of a complete doe cull is impossible.

Just some raw numbers:
Deer analyzed by TWRA for CWD were: Fayette 821 Hardeman 906

2017 season Gun harvest total: Fayette 3402 Hardeman 3006.

Rifle season kill total leaders for all of Tennesee? Fayette was #1, Hardeman was #2.

 

[BULL MOOSE]

Those two counties are usually in Top 10.