CWD and wildlife Management with Ted
Whitetail Deer
Although he is a bit radical and also uses some salty language, Uncle Ted knocks it out of the park regarding the mismanagement of our game by the agencies responsible for those populations.
I saw it and thought it was typical Ted. He had some good things to say but the message gets lost because of his rants and just comes across as crazy, like CWD doesn't come from game farms. He says CO DW injected deer with scrapes. Maybe that's true, IDK. I have never heard that before and would like to know the source - but say it is true. How does it start in CO and magically show up in WI thousands of mile away with no cases in between. It kind of pissed me off when he said all bureaucrats are a$$holes, because , well, I am a government employee and although I don't like the label that technically makes me a bureaucrat.
Yea, typical lunacy from this guy...needs a fact checker. I'm surprised Joe didn't question him more, but when he goes on his "confrontational" rants I think it's just easier to nod and hope he leaves the studio soon.
I dont get it....You think Ted is wrong here? I think not. What facts seem incorrect?
Treeline x2
Starfire, he was correct in where it was first discovered, although I've never heard about injecting deer by the CO DOW before, and we really don't know if it "started" there. It wasn't real clear to me, but I think he kinda passed over the fact that game farms do contribute to the spreading when animals are sold or transferred to another location. I'm a big private property rights guy, but I do not like game farms where supposedly wild animals are bottle fed, injected with God knows what, studded out until they're too old, then summarily executed for big dollars. The fact that CWD is found there is probably because that's where the game departments are looking for it.
I can look out my window and almost see the CSU deer pens where they did the CWD scrapie research here in Ft Collins
Not sure about the injection thing, but the DOW research facility was donated to the state from a sheep slaughtering company that had to shut down their operations because of scapies outbreaks.
They couldn’t figure out why the deer and elk were getting sick and dying in the pens and did a lot of different tests, including moving some to other test facilities on the west slope and actually sold excess deer and elk to private elk and deer facilities that were likely infected.
Would be interesting to look at where all those animals that were sold went and how the disease spread.
Well which is it? It spread from CSU, or was always nationwide to begin with? Crazy Ted asserts the latter, no?
I get tired of the armchair biologists chiming in on CWD. There is still so much unknown with CWD, yet the self-righteous blabberheads act like they have it all figured out.
Dryckreek, I knew it started in CO I had just never heard the injection thing. He seems to contradict himself because after that he says its not spreading they just didn't find it in other area because they weren't testing for it.
I tend to trust molecular biologists, MD's and biologists more than Ted on issues like infectious disease. But I dont know enough about CWD to know if what he's talking about is true or not.
Had to go to the way-back machine. I have heard of the injection claim before. Nowadays it might not be PC or legally smart to claim someone was experimenting and injecting captive deer. From what I read the exact source of CWD is unclear. Clinically...it seems the wildlife research place in Ft Collins, CO gets the credit. If they were doing experiments with these captive deer.....I'd speculate they somehow became infected from something the researchers did or were doing. In those days.....the research community probably wasn't as advanced or knowledgeable and about CWD and TSE's as we are today. They had a mess and didn't realize it.
""Published: January 18, 2001
Chronic wasting disease was first noticed in 1967 in mule deer at the Foothills Research Station at Fort Collins, Colorado.
Wildlife biologists had been capturing wild deer in the surrounding forests and raising them in fenced enclosures so they could study deer nutrition, behavior and basic biology.
But researchers found that many of their young deer were dying in the prime of their lives at three, four or five years of age.
The animals grew weak and wasted away, eventually dying in an emaciated state.
It was years before scientists discovered what was at the root of the recurring phenomenon.
Originally they wondered if it was related to nutrition or caused by an environmental toxin. They didn’t think the animals were suffering from an infectious disease.
Between 1974 and 1979, 67 deer at Fort Collins and Wheatland, Wyoming were held for long-term feeding studies.
Of those, 57 developed CWD. ""
Whatever the source, we have CWD now. Efforts should focus on a path forward, which will be very, very difficult.
Here's a recent article on the CWD connection to Ft Collins. It was first discovered there, but every disease has been discovered somewhere right?
Read anything you can find...there's nothing on any deer being injected with scabies, or Macaque's being injected with CWD, or that the farmers in MI can't eat the cranes they shoot with their depredation permits.
Of course he is going to defend deer farms. He operates his own game farms. I agree with quite a bit of what Ted preaches, but this isn't one of them.
sitO X2
If you don't test for CWD does that mean it's not there? Seems to be the answer in some states.
I've been reading about the relationship of humic acid and CWD recently. I hope it leads to something positive.
Another article: https://elknetwork.com/researcher-humic-acid-may-break-down-cwd/
The last thing we need is human intervention....the more these nitwits in government agencies meddle the more they will fork it up. Let nature work it` course.
Probably no way to count...the number of times, factual information has been provided on this site as to where, when and how CWD was discovered. No sense repeating it. We humans, did not discover CWD. We discovered the test for it. I have not seen Ted's comments. If he said they were injecting animals with the virus, he is wrong. What did happen was force feeding infected tissue to cattle-making them ingest it. It caused no CWD. Just my personal opinion, although it is shared by several biology-type doctors, CWD is being used as a vehicle for a separate agenda.
This is the same clown that says deer in his high fences farms are just as wild a free range deer. Ted has zero credibility and quite franking sounds like a raving lunatic.
Ted's about as credible of a source for information on CWD as Bowriter.
I would not rule out the injection theory if the folks at this research facility at Ft Collins were doing experiments and unknowingly spread the disease within their facility via contaminated injections or feed.
JL Keep in mind, anyone can advance any theory. That does not make it fact. I have a similar theory about NoWiser. :)
Seriously-Anything is possible. But here is a hard, indisputable fact that no knowledgeable researcher will refute: Testing for CWD among penned or concentrated animals and analyzing the data gathered, is only minimally connected to testing in the wild population. Yes, the likely factors in spread are the same. But that is about it. Consider this-and these are not my figures and this is purely hypothetical.
Take state "A", in which the annual deer kill is 500,000 animals. In test #1, 5,000 animals are tested. In test #2, 50,000 animals are tested. In test #3, 250,000 are tested. Obviously, the more animals tested, the greater probability of finding a positive test.
Now: First, what percentage of wild-kill animals is likely to be tested in any state? Second, what is the accuracy probability of the testing? Third, and this is a big, unspoken factor. What is the positive or negative economic impact of a positive finding? In short, in a politically run wildlife management situation in which committees or commissions that are not biologists or professional wildlife managers, what information is most likely to be made public? Think about that. Is state "A" going to profit or benefit from a positive finding? Or would they prefer to take federal funding to develop testing methods and research and remain, "CWD free"?
If you know anything about the Asian Carp "invasion" in some areas, you might draw a similar comparison.
Here is an often advanced theory, shared by many knowledgeable biologists and by dumb ole me: In any moderately large population of cervids, if 85% could be tested for CWD, you would find CWD. The finding of it or not finding it in a penned population allows for constant observation and timely necropsy. Animals in a pen can be closely monitored and dead animals quickly necropsied. That does not apply to a wild population. For any state with a reasonable population of cervids, to claim they are CWD free-as does my state of TN-is, at the very least, quite suspect. Any honest, knowledgeable big game biologist will say the same. There is one glaring factor I have not heard discussed in regard to CWD---The "MONEY" Factor. Think about it.
I am not an expert on CWD. I have known about it and seen animals that have it, since 1970. I am slightly more informed about CWD simply due to my interaction with many trusted, big game biologists in several states. Due to this, subjects are discussed that are not, to my knowledge, allowed to be made public. I also suspect this may be true of Ted.
Testing in MN does not support that. We had one positive deer show up near Pine Island (a lot of speculation that it escaped from a dear farm since it was a very old doe and most wild deer do not live that long around here). Anyway the DNR conducted a extensive herd reduction and testing program. No other cases in that area have been turned up since then. So I do not subscribe to the "its everywhere, its been around for thousands of years theory". Because of the Pine Island case the state amped up its testing and few years later it was found near Preston, about a hour away, and also near another game farm. Testing is showing that more deer turned up positive this last year and the article in this weeks outdoor news is "Footprint of CWD is growing". So this is my question. How can it be growing if its been there all along?
https://www.medpagetoday.com/neurology/generalneurology/47042
I'd definitely trust these people more than Ted Nugent. Just me though.
I have a buddy that lives about 10 miles from me on a farm. Around 20 years ago he imported several deer from the midwest of the US. He was planning on making his own scent products I believe. He had several huge bucks and they were in 5 acres fenced section. Does in another. I know several escaped or were stolen. If they were to find CWD here jee I wonder where it might have come from ? But Teds probably right it doesn't come from deer farms LOL
Starfire-That actually supports 100% what I said. Go back and read my entire post. That is precisely what I was pointing out. Read my first sentence. Think about it. Then, read the hypothetical example. Pine is a perfect example. Now, consider this: Is CWD growing or is our testing for it growing? If we did not test for it, in a wild, free-ranging population, would mortality increase? Think about that. There is not one factual piece of data to support that it has not always been present.
Now. Point #2- If it is in fact growing in incidences, why? Has there been a change in dynamics? Has concentrated feeding, i.e. food plots and feeders changed the herd usage and encouraged close contact? Would that cause an increase or growth of the "footprint"?
Admitted-Pine Island was a basic fiasco. But it cannot and should not be regarded as having any significant bearing for exactly the reason you stated. " (a lot of speculation that it escaped from a dear farm since it was a very old doe and most wild deer do not live that long around here). " If one black frog from a frog farm is found in a pond with 100-green frogs, can we assume all the green frogs now have a recessive green marker?
BW....it sounds as though your talking about is determining prevalence rates. My only point is specific to the Ft Collins facility and the possibility of transmission via what the researchers were doing.
If you haven't read his writings already, Jim Sweeney of the Concerned Sportsman of Michigan has done some fantastic work studying the CWD situation in Michigan and other states. If you get chance read some of his papers on this and Btb.
http://www.concernedsportsmen.net/downloads.html
JL- I agree with you, he is doing a good job.
Yep, Dirk is dead on...except for the specie jumping, thing. :)
