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CWD management research likely

News from NWF: WASHINGTON, D.C. — The expected passage of bipartisan legislation to stop the spread of chronic wasting disease is good news for deer, moose, and elk populations across the nation. The Chronic Wasting Disease Research and Management Act invests in research to detect and manage the fatal disease and will fund state and Tribal agencies’ efforts to stop its spread. The bill was included in the end-of-year omnibus spending bill that Congress is expected to pass later this week.

“For far too long, Chronic Wasting Disease has ravaged deer, elk, and moose populations across the country and harmed ecosystems, sportsmen and women, and local communities that depend upon healthy wildlife populations and the outdoor economy,” said Collin O’Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation. “We applaud Senators Martin Heinrich and John Hoeven and Representatives Ron Kind and Glenn Thompson for working tirelessly on this broadly supported bipartisan legislation that will ensure that state and Tribal wildlife managers can take effective action against the disease based on the best available science."

“Chronic wasting disease is the greatest threat to white-tailed deer in Tennessee and across the nation. It’s why so many sportsmen and women have been advocating for greater investment into research and management solutions,” said Mike Butler, CEO of the Tennessee Wildlife Federation. "This bill provides critical funding for research that will help inform how we manage this devastating disease. A disease that has become a serious threat." The National Wildlife Federation and its affiliates have worked for many years to secure passage of this legislation. The Chronic Wasting Disease Research and Management Act invests $70 million annually for research and management of the disease. To learn more about CWD and potential solutions, listen to The Chronic Wasting Disease Chronicles, a podcast series produced by NWF Outdoors.

I’m not inclined to believe this is a good thing. Federal government funding state wildlife agencies comes with many strings attached.

Follow the money.

"A disease that has become a serious threat."

To what?

Don’t believe it’s a good thing. Quote from ceo of NWF doesn’t even seem close.

The Scoop on the Scope

Adult male cervids are the most vulnerable to CWD. More than 40% of free-ranging cervids in this category are infected with CWD in the heavily affected areas of Colorado, Wisconsin and Wyoming. As of July 2020, CWD was detected in 26 U.S. states and three Canadian provinces, a sobering statistic that includes free-ranging cervids and/or commercial captive cervid facilities.

To date, there have been no reported cases of CWD infection in people. However, some animal studies suggest CWD poses a risk to certain types of non-human primates, like monkeys, that eat meat from CWD-infected animals or come in contact with brain or body fluids from infected deer or elk. These studies raise concerns that there may also be a risk to people. Since 1997, the World Health Organization has recommended that it is important to keep the agents of all known prion diseases from entering the human food chain.

Oh good let's involve politicians and the federal government sense they have such a amazing track record of fixing problems. Far better uses of taxpayer money especially when people are paying $8 for a dozen eggs. I'd prefer the national government stay away from my states wildlife agency. If they're so concerned with cwd the ODWC can take some of the 1/2 million in revenue they put back into the state treasury and fund that research. Many state agencies have already forgot their jobs are to manage wildlife for the citizens of that state not make as much money as possible (looking at you cpw). Feeding already bloated agencies federal fat back will only make it worse.

Some really think that CWD is an issue - its more of a money making issue than anything.

I bet Pfizer and Moderna are behind this

The most important question is can cows swim???? More research needed!!! "Cows, as it turns out, are actually good swimmers. They take to the water naturally and have little trouble swimming from one side of a pond or stream to the other.

While some cows can cover much larger distances, others prefer to go on shorter swims to reach the other side of a grazing opportunity. However, since cows can swim even easier than they walk, many are capable of going several miles without getting tired.?

I'm with Charlie on this

Not all bad news. Guys in the culling business should do well.

If it puts an end to baiting in KS it will not be a good thing...it'll be a GREAT thing!

The Government will do some studies!!! This will help immensely I'm sure. No way this doesn't solve the problem, should be good to go.

I have seen the affects of cwd with Illinois dnr. They’ve been culling the herd and turned hunting into a painful endeavor. The numbers of deer seen during a hunt is way down and not until the very late season do I see groups and even then It 3 or 4 instead of 8 or more. It’s is also said that they are shooting deer to lower the crop damage and accidents , who really knows. I was told that dnr will shoot an area for five years and if they get no positive cases in the fifth year they stop shooting. I fear the hunting will take some years to return back to the good old days, hopefully. I was always under the impression that cwd has been around for years especially in Elk herds and was something that we lived with. Hopefully this isn’t just a money grab by agencies and that a cure will actually occur. Just like covid vaccines, a lot of money was made and money always corrupts good intentions .

I’m speaking without all the facts but I think one thing game departments do is over issue tags to eradicate populations. Wisconsin, eastern Colorado.

Randy, CPW has been open with us about their desire to kill off mature mule deer bucks everywhere in the state. They increased tag numbers and put two rifle seasons in the rut. Our once amazing mule deer state will be reduced to a fork horn hunt like Pennsylvania within a few years.

And when all the mature deer are drastically reduced, guess which age class will show a jump in rates? Yup, the younger bucks who are now doing all the breeding and mingling with the doe groups!

Endless, ridiculous cycle of culling!

Was hoping you or Barrett would weigh in. I don’t know the answers but the post referring to the culling business made me think. That’s us steered by our game department’s who I don’t believe have our best interests in mind.

They did a massive culling operation in my home area back when the CWD scare first took off. Killed every muley they could shoot, except on some private land where the owners told them to pound sand.

Problem was, the entire region is saturated with lions, so the recovery had to contend with that predation. 30 years later and our infection rate is still stable at the pre-cull rate, but what was once a great deer area is now so-so. The culling did nothing except kill those with a presumed natural immunity, waste a hell of a lot of good venison, and ruin what was a really good deer area.

"Our once amazing mule deer state will be reduced to a fork horn hunt like Pennsylvania within a few years."

Geez Lou, that hurts a little. I got a 6 point once.:)

CWD was a big issue being pushed by our state DNR just a few short years ago. Listening to the DNR talk you would have thought that the end was near for the whitetail deer.

Then the money dried up and their voice went silent. If it was such a great threat then the push to stop its spread should have continued whether the money was there or not.

Wolves have killed more deer here in Michigan than CWD. Why is there no plan to kill the wolves?

“ Wolves have killed more deer here in Michigan than CWD. Why is there no plan to kill the wolves?“

Don’t confuse the Liberals with any facts

No CWD, No grants

Exactly.

I'm sure somewhere in this funding will be requirements to study the correlation between CWD and "climate change".

There will be a hidden agenda there always is with "research" and "science" nowadays

CWD is being poorly managed. My opinion of course. Way over reacting by all these kill offs. If that is actually an effective control then gotta kill em all. Not just mess the population up by killing a bunch. Deer are not having a big die off from CWD. But they are from the ridiculous partial culling. So some deer they like to picture die from it. Duh! Nature doing its thing. Such a waste of money and almost fear mongering. If a hunter doesn't wanna shoot one and eat it, good, more for the rest of us. Same for elk, but "they" haven't had the balls to do massive shooting of elk as a disease control. Thank goodness. Don't often get too involved in these controversies anymore. Did in my working days. But still know people involved and none I know are impressed by the supposed controls or even need to do much. The CWD thing is being more mismanaged than even the wolf thing. Wolves are being "managed" by poor politics, not biology. CWD is being messed with by poor biology and apparently soon by poor politics.

Enough for me. It's Valentines day so I'm gonna pour a glass of wine and watch college basketball this evening. I know, wine drinking may be a bigger threat than CWD, but...Who Cares.

My experience with CWD in eastern Co. In 2019, archery hunting eastern plains of Co. where I have hunted many many years, I saw a very sickly deer, called the game warden who proceeded to kill the deer at long range after looking at the pics of the deer I had taken. Obviously a CWD deer he said. 2 days later I killed a pig of a deer and had it tested, results were negative. It just so happened that these 2 deer were killed less than 400 yds apart. Later on I talked to the guy in charge of testing in that area and he told me that they had tested over 600 deer that fall (whitetails and muleys) and there was over 40% positive hits for CWD. Common sense, IF you believe what they tell you would dictate that there would be a lot of deer carcases the next fall in the area. And the first moron that says the coyotes eat them up completely I am going to strangle (usually a biologist). The next fall I bowhunted for muleys for 38 days in the same exact area and never found a single carcass, spinal column or any type of remains of a deer. I also paid attention to the live deer and never saw a single ratty looking animal in that time frame. And I was paying particular attention because of what I was hearing in Eastern Co. about CWD. Now I know that a ratty looking deer will only be obvious in the very latest stages of the disease, but there would be at least a couple you would think in 38 days of walking around in that open country with 40% prevalence. If you have ever had occasion to go to a meeting on CWD and see the absolute lack of answers on some basic questions you would be stunned to realize these people are in charge of our wildlife. I had heard that in the last couple of years everybody and their dog had buck tags and it showed last fall. In 8 days of hunting I saw 12 2-point bucks and a 3x4. The landowners and local guys all said the same thing, bucks shot out horrible bad. This is well after the seasons had ended. So for those of you that have a problem with what I have said answer me a couple of questions. If half a dozen bucks lick or sniff a doe in heat that is infected, will they become infected? If a doe that is infected has a fawn, will the fawn be infected? What is the rate of infection from prions in the environment vs physical contact? ........Mike

Maybe they should provide proof that cwd has done some damage to a herd of big game animals before they start appropriating money. When is the last time anyone saw a deer die from cwd? no hunter i have ever known.

My experience with CWD in eastern Co. In 2019, archery hunting eastern plains of Co. where I have hunted many many years, I saw a very sickly deer, called the game warden who proceeded to kill the deer at long range after looking at the pics of the deer I had taken. Obviously a CWD deer he said. 2 days later I killed a pig of a deer and had it tested, results were negative. It just so happened that these 2 deer were killed less than 400 yds apart. Later on I talked to the guy in charge of testing in that area and he told me that they had tested over 600 deer that fall (whitetails and muleys) and there was over 40% positive hits for CWD. Common sense, IF you believe what they tell you would dictate that there would be a lot of deer carcases the next fall in the area. And the first moron that says the coyotes eat them up completely I am going to strangle (usually a biologist). The next fall I bowhunted for muleys for 38 days in the same exact area and never found a single carcass, spinal column or any type of remains of a deer. I also paid attention to the live deer and never saw a single ratty looking animal in that time frame. And I was paying particular attention because of what I was hearing in Eastern Co. about CWD. Now I know that a ratty looking deer will only be obvious in the very latest stages of the disease, but there would be at least a couple you would think in 38 days of walking around in that open country with 40% prevalence. If you have ever had occasion to go to a meeting on CWD and see the absolute lack of answers on some basic questions you would be stunned to realize these people are in charge of our wildlife. I had heard that in the last couple of years everybody and their dog had buck tags and it showed last fall. In 8 days of hunting I saw 12 2-point bucks and a 3x4. The landowners and local guys all said the same thing, bucks shot out horrible bad. This is well after the seasons had ended. So for those of you that have a problem with what I have said answer me a couple of questions. If half a dozen bucks lick or sniff a doe in heat that is infected, will they become infected? If a doe that is infected has a fawn, will the fawn be infected? What is the rate of infection from prions in the environment vs physical contact? ........Mike

Is the "best available science " the same science they used in the pandemic scare. I'm sure it is if it's buried in the last part of a year end "omnibus bill ". Pure bullshit like everything the gooberment does in these so called "research projects ". You can bet 7 million will be lining someone's pockets and it wont be us sportsmen. Hey let's kill most of the deer "can't get them all " and end CWD. That way no one will have any deer to hunt for the following ten years and see how that works out for hunters and sportsman's country wide. Surprised to not hear a word on this forum about the shed hunting ban in Utah. If CWD is such a concern why are they hauling in Alfalfa and other supplements to a central location to keep the deer from starving and congregate the herd. Using this analysis it will kill them all. Any time politicians and career free loaders get involved in wildlife management it never ends well for hunters and fisherman .

My experience with CWD in eastern Co. In 2019, archery hunting eastern plains of Co. where I have hunted many many years, I saw a very sickly deer, called the game warden who proceeded to kill the deer at long range after looking at the pics of the deer I had taken. Obviously a CWD deer he said. 2 days later I killed a pig of a deer and had it tested, results were negative. It just so happened that these 2 deer were killed less than 400 yds apart. Later on I talked to the guy in charge of testing in that area and he told me that they had tested over 600 deer that fall (whitetails and muleys) and there was over 40% positive hits for CWD. Common sense, IF you believe what they tell you would dictate that there would be a lot of deer carcases the next fall in the area. And the first moron that says the coyotes eat them up completely I am going to strangle (usually a biologist). The next fall I bowhunted for muleys for 38 days in the same exact area and never found a single carcass, spinal column or any type of remains of a deer. I also paid attention to the live deer and never saw a single ratty looking animal in that time frame. And I was paying particular attention because of what I was hearing in Eastern Co. about CWD. Now I know that a ratty looking deer will only be obvious in the very latest stages of the disease, but there would be at least a couple you would think in 38 days of walking around in that open country with 40% prevalence. If you have ever had occasion to go to a meeting on CWD and see the absolute lack of answers on some basic questions you would be stunned to realize these people are in charge of our wildlife. I had heard that in the last couple of years everybody and their dog had buck tags and it showed last fall. In 8 days of hunting I saw 12 2-point bucks and a 3x4. The landowners and local guys all said the same thing, bucks shot out horrible bad. This is well after the seasons had ended. So for those of you that have a problem with what I have said answer me a couple of questions. If half a dozen bucks lick or sniff a doe in heat that is infected, will they become infected? If a doe that is infected has a fawn, will the fawn be infected? What is the rate of infection from prions in the environment vs physical contact? ........Mike

Mike, I've hunted eastern CO for 35 years and can attest to everything you posted.

AND ANOTHER THING...If 2 bucks run out of a draw and one is big and healthy and the other one is ratty, hunters will shoot the healthy one every time. The ratty one lives to carry on the disease and the one with a genetic resistance to CWD is killed. Wouldn't you think keeping the one that will help the species would be smart? I would like to know if anyone has ever tested old bones from Indian shelters has ever came up with CWD prions. Wouldn't that prove that the species had beat it in the past? Supposedly the prions are "viable" for a thousand years." Viable" is a biologist story, not mine..........Mike (Susan says I've got to check it different so I don't post it 3 times)

My late friend who managed the CSU deer research pens at the time of the "discovery" believed the penned deer got it through nuzzling outside deer. He said there was no way it was involved with a scrapie experiment. We interviewed local ranchers in the core endemic zone for a a Wall Street Journal article and they told us they had seen an occasional sick deer for as long as they could remember, just wrote it off as being a sick deer. As one said, "Cattle die, animals die. Part of life".

They way over issue deer tags in my CWD unit, I remember the hey days for mulies back in the 80's before they discovered CWD. There were so many freaking deer. This year I had a PLO tag to hunt my own land for a 60 day season Oct-Nov. I saw one two point buck.

The "scientists" like to blame development, climate change, and anything else they can think of besides predators, and over issuing tags.

The management policy seems to be to kill the bucks before they die by way over issuing tags. Either way, they bucks are being slaughtered.

Then they say because prevalence rates are down the deer population is better. I don't see many bucks or does any more. Nothing like the 80's, not even close.

"Alright guys we just got the Federal money to combat CWD. What tools do we have in our toolbox to fight this?"

"Anyone?..."

"Sir, so far studying and culling is the only thing we can do but culling doesn't work"

"Hmmmm, well we have to spend this or we lose it. Let's get to studying and culling."

Kill all the deer to save them from CWD, makes perfect sense.

Colorado and Saskatchewan have had it for over 50 and 30 yrs and are still two of the best places for mule deer in North America. They should be the worst places. It’s all lies, biologists and state wildlife agencies get big $ to figure out what to do…

Their “research” will undoubtedly show that CWD was caused by “climate change” and centuries of unchecked “systemic racism”. It’ll be money well spent.

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