Contributors to this thread:
Anyone planning to have their elk tested for cwd this season? I never have submitted one and I've killed and eaten some from a hot zone area. I am considering it this year if I'm fortunate enough to tag one.
Prolly won’t, although I know it’s around here. We always had deer tested back in Wisconsin when I hunted in a hot zone, but it was also free there... never had one come back hot...
In some parts of Wisconsin over 50% of two and a half year old (and older) whitetail bucks test positive for CWD. Over the years, out west 'n out east 'n here in the midwest, thousands of CWD positive cervids have been consumed by humans and to date there has never been a proven case of CWD transfer to humans. Not yet, but.....
Reading the new regs I just received from Wyoming I think mandatory testing is coming in the near future at least in the areas I hunt. As I said, I've eaten every elk I've killed and I've seen some sick ones in the wild but if the G&F is going to study this disease then the hunters are the best source for their data.
Depends if you want your hunting destroyed....if so submit....if not don`t. Your animal can have CWD and test negative....so you could be eating a CWD positive animal thinking it`s negative. So really what is the sense.
But positive animals could adversely effect your hunting in the future.
Nope. Could you imagine killing a great bull 2-5 miles from the trailhead. Then having it test positive and tossing the whole thing in the garbage?! I’d rather be oblivious.
Nope. Only did when it was mandatory in my unit back when the scare started.
Remember the post of that poor guy that shot that huge muley and decided to stop and have it tested. They destroyed his cape and split the skull....he left with pieces....funny but sad. They obviously didn`t know what they were doing
some of these comments seem ridiculous..
if i could ever kill one, i would get it tested..
I don't eat the brain, spinal cord, eyes, spleen, or tonsils of my elk, so I don't see any point in having it tested.
Matt
Pyrannah, it was discovered in my county. Assuming it just spontaneously erupted at the end of Laporte Avenue one night back in the early 60s (it didn't...) thousands of people here have been eating infected meat for at least 60 years, and the incidence rate of CJDv in humans in our county is lower than the national average. So maybe eating infected meat actually helps prevent CJDv?
I don't know anybody here who gets it tested anymore unless it's required (moose).
As Lou stated, there is no definitive scientific evidence that eating CWD infected meat increases the chances of humans getting CJD.
Matt
Pyrannah….Until you live through "herd eradication" because of CWD hysterics...like I have in 2 states...you might be thinking differently. It absolutely destroyed our hunting for over a decade.
^^^ Ditto here in northern CO. It has taken a couple decades for the mule deer to start to bounce back after the slaughter (we are saturated with cougars, bears, and coyotes). Now the CPW is trying a different tactic - dramatically reducing the number of mature bucks, which presumably spread the disease to different doe groups during the rut. We'll see if this works, but in any case Colorado's days as a great place to kill a mature muley will rapidly come to a halt. All because of hysteria over something that may have been naturally occurring in the ecosystem forever.
My question was not related to eating CWD positive meat but should hunters provide data for scientists to study the disease? Franklin gave a reasonable answer: "no" because in his experience, hysteria resulted and the solution was herd eradication.
Not sure, but I think Franklin it talking about this one. It was my dads. It came back negative, but both my brother and I deer this year came back positive. Probably not going to get to go elk hunting this year. Will check any deer or elk we shoot though. We learned how to remove brainstem and lymph nodes and send off ourselves. FYI, it wasn't funny
KsRancher…..that was the one. I only thought it was funny because I didn`t think people could be so incompetent to make such a mistake like that. Those people had no business being involved in the testing. It was just shocking to think someone would do that to someone's trophy.
My apologies to you and your father.
Mountain Mike's did the trick
Mountain Mike's did the trick
Just received this from AZ....
Hunters from out of state may only bring the following animal parts into Arizona according to the following requirements of Arizona Game and Commission Rule R12-4-305:
Meat that is boneless or has been commercially butchered and packaged Finished taxidermy mounts Skulls that are mounted or clean skulls/skull plates without any meat or soft tissue Antlers that are hard-horned or velvet antlers that have been taxidermied Hides without any meat or soft tissue Teeth without any tissue attached
Out-of-state hunters coming to hunt in Arizona should check with their state about importation rules. They can also check the CWD alliance website: http://cwd-info.org/ and select the state from the map.
Texas is not quite that strict, but you can’t bring the head or spine back into Texas. And I have a deer tag this year in southeast Colorado in an area of mandatory CWD testing. Due to the remoteness of the hunting area that may prove problematic for me to 1) get it to someone that can take samples to test it and 2) get it caped for transport as I have taken the time/never learned to cape. May need to this year.
Sometimes I'll slice off a little piece and test it before I pull it off the grill. Hard to resist :^)
As for CWD, nope.
I don`t think the game departments understand how these over the top restrictions are going to hurt their own citizens and businesses. If you are a Arizona taxidermist you are basically only doing Arizona mounts.
Follow up questions:
1. Since the majority here are not testing, do you feel it's a waste of time and money by the state and they should stop providing testing?
2. Do your grandkids eat untested meat?
I'm not looking for an argument. I've killed and eaten elk from a well known hot zone (not my home state). I just live in a state that has long denied the existence of CWD in our deer and so has provided no testing. A captive deer has recently tested positive and it's unclear what will be the reaction by our wildlife department.
