CWD..?

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Shanghai McCoy

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So I just read an article in the Topeka paper about CWD here in Kansas. It has been mostly out west but now it is showing up in NE Kansas, where I hunt, as well.
I know this has been a problem for hunters in other states so I'm wondering how it affects your hunting and processing there?
 
We have had deer testing positive for it here in Wisconsin since 2002. Like with covid, there was hysteria and misinformation at first. Biggest changes are with baiting/feeding, butchering and disposal of carcasses. Other changes are the attempts to reduce herd numbers, but since most areas of high deer density are on private land, it's almost impossible to do.
 
Shanghai McCoy said:
I know this has been a problem for hunters in other states so I'm wondering how it affects your hunting and processing there?
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I would be concerned more with what your state is doing to combat CWD than what my state is doing. Not all states deal with CWD the same. Wisconsin was very proactive in the beginning. While they have toned things down a tad as they learned more about the disease and how it is transmitted, they still are staying on top of it. Suggestions as to avoiding shots to the brain/CNS, handling of the meat and butchering tools and what to do if you see a sick deer are voluntary. Feeding/baiting, the transportation and disposal of carcasses is not.

Even tho CWD has been around for over two decades, I have yet to witness a deer in the wild that exhibits symptoms, even tho I live in deer country and spend a lot of time outdoors.. They claim deer rarely last a week after the onset of symptoms, so this may be the reason.

The scary thing is, they claim the prions responsible for the disease live in the soil forever. IOWs, once it's in an area, it's there for good.
 
It's nothing new, its been around long before anyone heard the term CWD. Same as BSE in cattle.
A lot of hype and hysteria just like Covid.
Yes its a real disease, but it didn't just show up in the last decade.
Don't shoot and butcher a sick deer. When you do shoot a deer, process the meat correctly and cook properly and you've nothing to worry about.
 
Hugger-4641 said:
It's nothing new, its been around long before anyone heard the term CWD. Same as BSE in cattle.
A lot of hype and hysteria just like Covid.
Yes its a real disease, but it didn't just show up in the last decade.
Don't shoot and butcher a sick deer. When you do shoot a deer, process the meat correctly and cook properly and you've nothing to worry about.
Click to expand...

Most of the above is misinformation. This is why I always tell folks to go to their state DNR/F&G to see what regulations and recommendations exist for your area. Most of the time, they also tell you the history of CWD in the area. This generally will tell you that CWD has not been around forever and that in many cases, it has appeared in the area in the last decade or even just last year. Cooking doesn't kill the CWD prions unless you cook your meat in an autoclave at thousands of degrees. The feed that spread the mad cow disease to humans in England had been cooked at high temps and dried. CWD is a form of Mad Cow disease, and thankfully is not yet capable of infecting humans. But....this was also true of Covid at one time before it mutated and crossed over.

I a!so advise folks in CWD areas to educate themselves about it. Tons of accurate and valid information out there. There is no reason to be uninformed or misinformed unless you want to be.
 
Its been out west for at least 2 decades here in KS. Dont touch the brain and dont process with open wounds or sores. Thats what i was taught. Dispose of the carcass in the trash, not on some back road.

Avoid mineral licks where the deer scrape and eat the dirt below the lick. If the bad things live in the dirt, thats gonna be a place where they get deposited and picked up by every deer that stops by for a lick.
 
1 deer came up positive for that in NW Alabama (Lauderdale County) last year. As a result, bringing deer unprocessed from anywhere in Al into Fl is not allowed, so I am told. Blackwater State Forest here in NW Fl (literally down the road from my house) ends at the Alabama state line. Then the forest is called Conecuh State Forest. I am reliably informed that the deer cross this line like it isn't there. My taxidermist's shop is 2 miles on this side of the Fl state line (Okaloosa County), surrounded by both Blackwater and Conecuh- but he can't legally do any deer mounts from 2 miles north of his shop, so he lost a lot of customers.
 
After starting this and reading the responses I see there is much to learn about how to deal with it.
My main take away, so far, is to avoid head and spine shots...
It also seems that field dressing is not advised as well..?
Evidently KDWPT had testing available last year but not yet this year.
 
This is a summary of MI.

No transport of unprocessed game or brain or spinal material in or out of known CWD areas. (Anymore, this is good advice for all game and species all of the time). If you want a head mount you must clean the brain and spinal fluid out of any of the parts before transport or have a local taxidermist do the job for you.

In MI, there are DNR testing centers regionally but only for the first few days of the season. Thus is just to get a sample. Beyond that, voluntary testing can be done at certain places (Michigan State University is one) for a small fee. I think kit was $35. It’s pretty easy to get them tested. Just going there is the hard part.

Some say the meat will be fine from a positive CWD deer and others are skeptical. Basically, process all deer separate and marked if you are in a testing area. Get the deer tested and if it comes back positive chuck that meat away. My dad and I process it all at once and are prepared to chuck all of it if need be. That’s just what we do. The area we hunt is in a zone of the highest CWD surveillance and we have heard from a family friend who is a local DNR biologist that there has not been a positive case in our county in several years. Because of this information, we roll the dice and mix our meat.

No baiting, mineral licks, etc.

Gloves are recommended for all aspects of game processing as was taught to us in hunter education 25+ years ago before CWD was as in the spotlight. However, foot and mouth disease, bovine tuberculosis, and mad cow disease and CWD were all known potential threats to the deer herd even back then. I remember there being moderate media attention about it and I have remembered the names of the diseases since. Since then, mad cow disease has been discovered to be exceedingly rare for deer to have. Foot and mouth disease is not a prion disease nor is bovine TB. FandM and TB have no public health threat such as the various prion diseases.

Anyway, get educated on it. So far, for me, it has not been a big deal.
 
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