Yup we should all relax. In 250 years all the deer will have this supposed resistance to CWD.
In response to sharpshooters for deer in Iowa, the Iowa DNR is so broke, or close to it there is no way they are going to pay for sharpshooters. They are leaving the decisions up to the people in the area(s) affected by CWD. They are trying to give the residents in those areas their best evidence on what to do. It is not in the DNRs best interest to scare people out of buying deer tags or reducing the herd unnecessarily. They would lose revenue both short and long term. The Iowa DNR, in my opinion in the case of CWD, has the conservation of the deer herd as their primary focus. It would be easy for them to sit in the Wallace Building and do nothing and just let CWD "run through" but CWD doesn't run through it stays forever. The DNR is making some tough choices in relation to CWD. Iowa will never be CWD free but it is my fervent hope that we don't become a state with 35% to 45% prevalence. If natural selection will eventually select for the deer with the GSS allele the prion will also evolve and be able to over come the resistance. In 100 years none of us will be around to tell the others "See I told you CWD would end up like this".
NDA had a blog this week by a deer researcher that is doing post doc work in SD but has family ground in SW Wisconsin. He made reference to the causative agent for CWD but he didn't site his sources, but the focus of his blog was he harvested a buck on the home place that was CWD positive. His statement was about bones on the wall are not as rewarding if there's no meat in the freezer to go along with them. Three of the 4 bucks taken on that farm were CWD positive. These was the first CWD positive deer on their ground.
I have thought about CWD so much in the past few years in general and the past few weeks in specific that I'm weary of the thought.
