What can REALLY be done about CWD?

[Harold Money jr]

I'm definitely not taking sides in this CWD mess. My question is what really can be done? The things I've heard are…
1) the prions can't be killed with chemicals or realistic heat
2) they can be transferred from the ground to plants to be spread after a deer eats the plant
3) if a buzzard or coyote eats a piece of a CWD deer then it's a carrier of the disease, it can go however far that animal flys or walks.
The disease seems unbeatable to me and I can't think of what should be done.
What do y'all recommend? No change from previous regs? Kill all deer? Kill some deer?

 

[TNCharlie]

What can REALLY be done about CWD?

Not a d@mn thing.

 

[DaveTN]

I don't eat deer meat. Mainly because I have had botulism and don't ever want to go through that again (Not from deer). Secondly because although the risk of CWD being transferred to humans is very low; its not zero.

My WAG is that there are so many viruses going around now, that the drug companies are focused on that area where they can make a ton of money. A cure for CWD would become a priority if a human turns up with it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[SEC]

Spend a whole bunch of money and kill a whole bunch of deer. Nobody wins.

 

[7mm08]

I don't eat deer meat. Mainly because I have had botulism and don't ever want to go through that again (Not from deer). Secondly because although the risk of CWD being transferred to humans is very low; its not zero.

My WAG is that there are so many viruses going around now, that the drug companies are focused on that area where they can make a ton of money. A cure for CWD would become a priority if a human turns up with it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A 1,000 people will die on Christmas Day and every day in the US alone from heart disease, but ONE person has yet to contract CWD. Hello, maybe it's a cure for morbid obesity!!!

 

[EastTNHunter]

I don't eat deer meat. Mainly because I have had botulism and don't ever want to go through that again (Not from deer).

Huh?

 

[Flintlocksforme]

A 1,000 people will die on Christmas Day and every day in the US alone from heart disease, but ONE person has yet to contract CWD. Hello, maybe it's a cure for morbid obesity!!!

Little Debbie will kill more people than CWD. Like the time I was down in Florida with some local's wrestling a dog caught wild boar. I got tusk scratched across the forearm.Later one of the guys saw me pouring water on the scratch. I said all I knew about hogs I learned from reading Old Yellar. I didn't want the hydrophoby. He said and I quote," food and cigarettes kill people, there's nothing else in the world more deadly."

 

[redblood]

Spend a whole bunch of money and kill a whole bunch of deer. Nobody wins.

Kill millions of deer to sageguard against a disease that could kill thousands of deer. Makes no sense.

 

[7mm08]

Like lining all of us to take a vaccine with less than a 1% chance of killing us, only to have it " work" less than 50%, and for no more than 6 months before you line up again while wearing a mask that proved worthless!!!!

Simple don't eat a deer that looks to be sick! Kill it and put it out of its misery like you would a rabid dog and walk away from it…..

 

[backyardtndeer]

What can be done.... go on and hunt like you always have. Kill a deer that makes you happy and have it tested if you want to. If you have it tested and the test comes back with detected result, don't eat it.

 

[megalomaniac]

Wouldn't be surprised if we don't find out Alzheimers dz is a similar human version of CWD in cervids.

Cure Alzheimers, and you have the same cure for cwd.

 

[knightrider]

Absolutely nothing can be done but waste a bunch if money and kill hundreds of thousands of deer that you didn't have too

 

[BSK]

1) the prions can't be killed with chemicals or realistic heat

A recent study found they were able to destroy prions on metal equipment. However, that doesn't say anything about how they could be destroyed in Nature.

2) they can be transferred from the ground to plants to be spread after a deer eats the plant

It is more a factor of deer urinating on plants and other deer eating those plants. Although the prions can definitely be in soil, and deer can pick it up from there as well.

3) if a buzzard or coyote eats a piece of a CWD deer then it's a carrier of the disease, it can go however far that animal flys or walks.

They do not become carriers of the disease. They can simply carry the prions in their gut until they defecate them out, perhaps miles away, slowly adding to the spread of the prions geographically.

The disease seems unbeatable to me and I can't think of what should be done.
What do y'all recommend? No change from previous regs? Kill all deer? Kill some deer?

Correct. It is not beatable in that it can't be conquered with any known treatment. No infected area has seen a decline in infection rates through ANY treatment or practice.

The only possible answer is letting Nature take her course. This is how disease immunity works. Just be shear chance, some deer will be immune to the disease. These deer will live, reproduce, and pass on their immunity to their offspring. Slowly, over a very long time (a hundred generations or more), the majority of the deer will be descendants of those original few immune deer, and CWD will just become a minor problem.

So what can be done in the meantime? Nothing. The best policy is to do nothing dramatic, like trying to knock down the deer population to "slow the spread," a tactic that has been tried in other areas will little result, other than driving hunters out of hunting.

 

[DoubleRidge]

What can be done about CWD?
Nothing that I am aware of?

But...for those fortunate to have the opportunity...we can manage the habitat. Improve fawning and nesting cover. Old field management, prescribed fire, strip disking, food plots, timber stand improvement, plant trees, edge feathering, plant native warm season grasses and pollenator blends, etc.
The list is long of the things we can do to benifit all wildlife.

Will any of these projects stop CWD? No...but its something we can do that actually benifits deer, turkey and all wildlife. Plus its something we can work on year around.

I have zero interest in slaughtering the local deer herd and I dont need any bonus tags.
We are going to focus on habitat management and the neighboring managers I've spoken to plan to do the same.

 

[Jcalder]

Wouldn't be surprised if we don't find out Alzheimers dz is a similar human version of CWD in cervids.

Cure Alzheimers, and you have the same cure for cwd.

We gonna tranquilize all these wild deer, and give them the cwd vaccine when it's found? Or you got something else in mind

 

[megalomaniac]

We gonna tranquilize all these wild deer, and give them the cwd vaccine when it's found? Or you got something else in mind

Why would you think that would be feasable? Sarcasm?

The future of curing disease is through genetic alterations. Once you have the genetic cure, you simply introduce genetically resistant deer into the wild. Nature takes care of the rest.

 

[Jcalder]

Why would you think that would be feasable? Sarcasm?

The future of curing disease is through genetic alterations. Once you have the genetic cure, you simply introduce genetically resistant deer into the wild. Nature takes care of the rest.

Some of it was sarcasm, but truly interested in how you would go about treating them

 

[knightrider]

Why would you think that would be feasable? Sarcasm?

The future of curing disease is through genetic alterations. Once you have the genetic cure, you simply introduce genetically resistant deer into the wild. Nature takes care of the rest.

Thats it, we need to genetically alter things that God made just the way he seen fit. If man would step out of the way nature would most definitely take care of all things

 

[RobbyW]

I can't give blood because I might have mad cow disease. I'll just add CWD to the list of things they might find I had after I am dead

 

[megalomaniac]

Thats it, we need to genetically alter things that God made just the way he seen fit. If man would step out of the way nature would most definitely take care of all things

Stop eating grains, corn, beans. 50 years from now, tell your great grandkid he needs to die from a cancer at age 10 that would be easily curable through crisper genetic technology, but justify his death is supposed to happen at age 10 because God made him just the way he seen fit.

God gave us intelligence and curiosity. And the capability.of gaining knowledge which can cure or even prevent disease. I absolutely guarantee you the future of medicine is not going to be treating diseases and mitigating the damage once they have already developed, but rather preventing disease before it even happens based on genetic susceptibilities.

Heck, we are just starting to do that now. Look at Angelina Jolie... her grandmother died mid age of ovarian cancer, her mom died likewise. She found out she had the BRCA2 gene mutation which virtually guarantees she will get ovarian or breast cancer... so she had her breasts and ovaries removed BEFORE she developed cancer. In 50 years, her grandkids won't have to do that, because we will be able to splice out the BRCA2 gene mutation from her cells and replace it with the normal variant.

Animal and plant susceptibility to disease WILL be altered in the future through genetics. Heck, humans have already been doing it on a less scientific basis for thousands of years already. Hybrid vigor, selective breeding... all done by man allowed through God's gift of intelligence.