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CWD thoughts……

Sligh1

Sligh1

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As Mercer county, MO sharp shooters take out a pile on corn piles….. gets me thinking…..
I am not an expert. I am not a scientist. I’m just a dude around farms & wild deer everyday.
My thought I’ve expressed in past that I can’t seem to get past or wanted your thoughts???….


CWD…
A real thing where Prions stay in soil forever & can transmit from deer to deer - my state of mind or feelings…. “NOT GOOD. WHAT CAN WE DO?!?!?”…..
I care about it.
On one hand my mind goes here (the mind of a regular farm dude)…..
- if prion stays in the soil forever. Aside from treatments of maybe HUMIC ACID & finding deer that can live a long time with it…. WE HAVE TO FIND SOME CURE OR CULL EFFORTS ARE POINTLESS…….
-spoke with one biologist at DNR & my question was: “so we need a cure or all this is for nothing - right?” Their response was fair…. “We are trying to slow the spread while we find a cure”. Whether I agree or not- that’s a fair point…. Fair. …… ON OTHER HAND: How many times have we heard “flatten the curve so we can get things under control”??? It reminds me a lot of COVID!!!!

Likelihood of cure?? Who knows. Maybe.
Is it a disaster where it’s came out & been there decades??? WISCONSIN…. Whatever they did they realized it didn’t work - bottom line. They changed course.

Right now MO is shooting deer in Mercer co with bait piles & sharp shooters. Tons of bucks & does shot. Tons.

Facts or “facts off top of head” : prions can transmit from plant material. Bale alfalfa plant or the deer poo with it? I think it’s plant only. But - move hay all over & that’ll do it. COYOTES & CROWS can move it.

BOTTOM LINE OR ?….. we need a cure or this will EVENTUALLY (who knows how long?!!?) run its course with enough time. Nothing will stop it. Other than a CURE? Or immunity or treatment types. Which a lot of $ going into that research!!!!

What u all think???!?!?! I love to hear folks correct things or add info. Where u agree or disagree? What y’all think & your thoughts???


*my SIDE note of EHD….. ehd was discovered/documented about same time as cwd. EHD & BT strains continue to get larger & worse & brought to new areas. IT WIPES HEARDS OUT!!!! Like 25-95% death!!!!!!!!! I’ve seen a “100% zone” first hand. Small few square mile area that had basically no deer left. Why it’s spreading & how devastating it is could be another topic we’ve got into a few times here & ideas on solutions.
 
Been around since the 60s and they still haven’t figured out anything. Government screws up pretty much everything it touches, I wouldn’t get a deer tested if they paid me too. Can’t take a deer across state lines but perfectly legal to take crops across even if they come from areas known to have cwd.
 
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Isn’t that sorta what they are doing here anyway? Late deer seasons are CWD zones?

It’s been around out west since the 60s. I’ve not tested a deer and won’t- cause I do think it’s slightly a load of BS. Other things are far worse as mentioned (EHD). They need to give it a rest IMO, you can’t transfer across state lines but I can take deer from public in Allamakee all the way to Council Bluffs if I wanted to ‍♂️
I don’t think there is any “help” in the near future.
Don’t Drurys push Anilogic? something for the healthier deer/EHD protection? (I don’t remember honestly) I’d love to see research behind something like that instead of assuming they are just trying to make piles of money
 
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Talked to a “hard core hunter” that’s also a farmer in the WI CWD epicenter. Said they can’t transport deer but they are actively sending alfalfa bales all over the Midwest. Which is true & inconsistent with government laws & actions regarding deer transportation for same reason.
I’ve asked quite a few “hard core hunters” in these cwd areas in WI what it’s like…. This is anecdotal & not a scientific answer but…. After they quit trying to eradicate the deer….. things rebounded & they personally don’t notice the impacts much or at all. Land sales for hunting in those areas (best indicator of reality on the ground) appear to be unaffected to a large degree.

The sharp shooter or “kill all the deer” to slow the spread seems oddly ironic…. The stated possible threat of cwd by experts “it will kill all of the deer. Could be extinction”. So, in those areas they “kill all the deer” (to slow the spread- ok). In that timeframe, a fair goal all sides can agree on….. when those deer are gone or suppressed…. A cure must be found. The second deer repopulate those areas, they inevitably will come in contact with the prions again & we are back to square 1 by definition.
TO ME, ONE SCHMUCK…. One dude with an IQ of a squirrel….. it seems the best approach is to stop spending countless millions killing deer (think WI spent in 10’s of millions) & put all efforts & FUNDS into research for cure, immunity or other viable treatments. PERSONALLY, I am not “worried” about it as it’s out of my control & personally, I would not allow sharp shooters near my ground as i disagree with the logic, strategy & results of it.
 
I'm in the middle of that Mercer County zone and can't say that I've seen a difference with the population/quality even after all the shooting they've done for the past ~ 4 years.

There was that one positive mature buck that was found and not a single one after that out of the hundreds of deer that were shot and tested.

I think most of the landowners now aren't letting them on their properties from what I've heard.
 
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letemgrow said:
I'm in the middle of that Mercer County zone and can't say that I've seen a difference with the population/quality even after all the shooting they've done for the past ~ 4 years.

There was that one positive mature buck that was found and not a single one after that out of the hundreds of deer that were shot and tested.

I think most of the landowners now aren't letting them on their properties from what I've heard.
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I think everywhere they have killed hundreds/thousands- the positive rate has always been single digits- and like 2% or less if I remember correctly.
 
newfarmer said:
I think everywhere they have killed hundreds/thousands- the positive rate has always been single digits- and like 2% or less if I remember correctly.
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There was a youtube video out there that I watched a while back saying how CWD was nullified when they supplemented some nutrient/mineral to the deer. I can't find that video now or have any idea on the validity to it, but it was interesting from what I remember.
 
Massachusetts just sent me a hunter survey. It was all about CWD. Or more specifically, what a hunter thought he knew about cwd. The survey asked that you answer the questions without looking up info. They asked lots of questions about cwd. I had to check "I don't know" more times than I would have thought. They asked a lot about how you travel with your kill. They gave info about cwd part way into the survey, then asked how you felt about that info. They wanted to know what facts you know, but also how you felt about those facts. I felt like I knew some of the answers, but it was very clear I really didn't know much. It will be interesting to see the results when they come out.
 
letemgrow said:
I'm in the middle of that Mercer County zone and can't say that I've seen a difference with the population/quality even after all the shooting they've done for the past ~ 4 years.

There was that one positive mature buck that was found and not a single one after that out of the hundreds of deer that were shot and tested.

I think most of the landowners now aren't letting them on their properties from what I've heard.
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I am right in the area in Mercer & had corn piles & sharp shooters on 2 neighbors properties- ( one deer tested positive & no others with all the testing they have done from the sharp shooters)
I totally noticed the steady decline of older & mature deer in the last 3-4 years. I also found a dozen or more dead deer on my farm that I can only assume were from shots that did not drop the deer in its tracks.
Sadly while on one a my neighbor farms, I found 4 or 5 antlered bucks with their racks cut off. Plus at least 10 other ones that ran off after being shot.
Complete waste a time & $$$ in my opinion & not going to solve anything.

This will be the second winter that they did not shoot by my farm so I hope to see a positive result in the buck quality this fall.

Also, I have not found 1 dead deer on my farm yet this winter so can only assume the high numbers of dead heads from past few years were from sharp shooters.
 
pkostelecky said:
Complete waste a time & $$$ in my opinion & not going to solve anything.
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It’s definitely that


There were more 4.5 and older bucks in my area this year than any I’ve known before. The pics/kills off my farm and my neighbors were impressive. The bucks that didn’t get shot this year make next year look even better.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
it was first discovered in northern Colorado in the late 60's. you can hunt that area now and shoot a deer that tests negative for CWD. if it was so bad, wouldn't ya think it woulda wiped out all the deer there by now. there have been no documented cases of deer to human transmission. I am not worried about it at all, but I am worried about government trying to fix it.
 
A deer doesn't show CWD symptoms until about 18 months...correct? So, sharp shooting or culling is a terrible way to go about this issue unless the deer is visibly ill.
Once it's in the soil it stays forever.
Many animals can eat CWD, not catch it, pass it through & deposit it onto the soil. Deer lick dirt all of the time.
Raptors are also a spreader of CWD as they can fly long distance to transmit CWD to a new area. Follow a Raptor Project, amazing how far these birds fly.
So, we either let nature do it's thing...or we kill every possible carrier to stop the spread.
I'm all for survival of the fittest.
 
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