I don't understand this. Someone please explain… if deer are dying from cars, coyotes and gunshot wounds, how can we reasonably blame CWD?
Isn't that like counting someone who dies in a car crash as a Covid death if they were positive at the time of the crash?
Because they test them and they are positive, so CWD is the culprit. In many ways the joke made at the beginning about CWD being Covid for deer is funny, because it is true. so to answer your question, yes kinda the same thing, except the deer would have eventually died from CWD.
The issue is all these people claiming it can jump from a deer to a person with no proof and that it will eventually wipe deer out, even though its been around for nearly 60 years and deer, mule deer, and elk are still doing just fine right where it started. Also if it can jump from deer to human, then why not to coyotes and buzzards? if the prions last for years on the grass where the deer fell, why not to cows and goats that eat the grass? No one has an legitimate answer to these questions other than speculation that it does, but we don't know it does...
My take is this. Too many folks want to be scared of something and there is WAY too much info out there to discern what is real and what is not (think Covid vaccine info or Covid info in general). They grapple with the "should I hunt or should I quit, because if I feed my family an infected deer, and they get sick, I will not be able to live with myslef" dilemma. Obviously something to think about, but with no real proof other than "Scientific" speculation (meaning a scientist speculated it) I can't see worrying about it too much. I guess they feel if they are going to quit something they love out of fear, may as well bring as many with them as possible as misery loves company.
It is clear they have no viable answer for it. Eradication hasn't worked. Deboning deer hasn't worked. At this point I think you just accept it and test deer. If it is positive you decide to dump it or eat it. I do think they need more testing sites to make it easier. The fact that they do not after 60 years tells me everything I need to know.