From "Meat-eater" 5/26 Can Large Predators Control CWD

[Mustangs Rule]

I hope you don’t get your wish in the large predator usage

The likely location for such research will be large Native American Reservations in the PNW. They are receptive and see predators in a positive light.

The lead research organization will be branches of the Vet School at Washington State University.

One area of focus will be Oregon's elk herd of which half the elk carry a genetic variation that gives them a resistance edge over CWD. So far, no CWD has been found there.

 

[SerialScience]

Staying in the realm of diseases carried by wildlife, I was reading about bioremediation of Lymes disease. White- footed mice are a supper carrier of infected ticks. I read the average coyote consumes 1,800 mice per year,
which might suggest spare the coyote, but they also consume lots of foxes, weasels, mink and a host of the smallest predators which in total consume far more mice, which suggests kill the coyotes.

I have read that some parts of Europe which are suffering from high rates of lyme's disease are banning the trapping of the small predators which eat Lyme's carrying rodents

Dogs are omnivores or more omnivorous than cats... Cats therefore tend to have more acidic stomach acids. Acids break down prions.

Wild extrapolations that aren't supported for science for a political agenda.

 

[SerialScience]

Too broad a question to get a straight answer. More deer in the SE, but mostly whitetails. More Mule deer in the NW, but more deer in general in the NE corner.

Not that any of this seems of significant to the broader issues.

I just looked at this active map of CWD and it showed where it would be in a few decades. It was gut-wrenching.

Then other sites offered the math just 20 years into the future from now. Losses in total deer number of 40% to 50% with the overall health of the deer herds lessened.

It is such a terribly grim picture. Really increasing number of deer hunted is inefficient because hunters are not specific as to whether they shoot CDW positive deer or healthy ones.

In all this mess there is only one invitation to hope. That is somehow field biologists can come up with a plan and a place to use large predators in an attempt at bioremediation to at least reduce CWD numbers.

There is nothing else.

All due respect, that's bs