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

 

[Mustangs Rule]

I was just thinking about some really great things happening on large Native American Reservations here in the west.

One for sure is their welcoming the full range of predators back, feeling like they belong with them and hopefully offering some data about CWD bio-remediation with predators keeping their deer and elk safe.

Also thinking about their offers to produce solar electricity on their land to replace what some old damns barely produce so the damns can be taken down, and salmon and steelhead can return to the ocean.

And then there is real strong growing movement on some reservations to get rid of lead bullets. They are tied to their land and wildlife and see the results, especially with birds of prey being poisoned scavenging at gut piles from game shot with lead core bullets.

"Iceyeeyernim" Mamaya" is the original name of one tribe.

That means "people born of coyote"

So significant to think of people who value and respect what most of you shoot on sight.

And lastly their overwhelming commitment to accepting how awful man-made climate change is.

 

[MTLabrador]

There’s some truly inspiring conservation work being done on the Crow reservation by nature’s top predator, the humble .22 lr and spotlight combo. I guess they’re keeping CWD in check, because you can’t have CWD if you don’t have any living deer or elk.

 

[Mustangs Rule]

There’s some truly inspiring conservation work being done on the Crow reservation by nature’s top predator, the humble .22 lr and spotlight combo. I guess they’re keeping CWD in check, because you can’t have CWD if you don’t have any living deer or elk.

What you describe above among Native Americans happens for sure. At age 48 I got bored with what I was doing, dusted off an old science degree I earned almost 30 years earlier from a fully accredited university, went back to school for years, brought my science up to date, earned a science education credential,

For next almost twenty years, I taught school and for a period chose to teach Native American teenagers. In all I taught 5 very different tribes.
One student came in one morning all proud that he had taken his first elk "last night".

In other situations,/tribes beginning hunters were given such a wonderful tradition filled education. It was a pleasure to watch. It went down them making their bows and arrows and hunting on land where their people had been for 15,000 years.

In the geographical area where I live the elk have always been here, for 15,000 + years plus, since they crossed the land bridge from Asia. They were never transplanted.

At least half the elk here have a genetic "speed bump" of resistance to CWD, slowing it down. Next, exactly where I live the elk have always had predators cleaning them. "Mt. Lions and Bears and Wolves Oh My" The elk herd's periods without wolves was relatively short.

There are 15,500 healthy elk, with no hoof rot or CWD or wintering contaminating feed lots, plus 21,000 deer with no CDW.

The human population is 7,500.

The big crisis in the natural system here right now in the high west is climate change. We have "snow drought". A warm angry northern Pacific Ocean, where heat is collecting at never before experienced levels, is sending over atmospheric rivers of warm snow melting rain. We have very little if any snowpack in the high country, which is becoming the "High- Bone Dry" country. Way too soon in the summer, w/o being naturally irrigated by melting snow, the high meadows are offering far less nutrition for elk.

The ecological norms that have been relatively consistent for over a 120,000
years are in complete choas.

 

[atlas]

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.

The only wolf hunting that occurs on the coastal PNW is on on Indian Reservations, through treaty rights that supersede state hunting laws.

https://wdfw.wa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/02317/wdfw02317.pdf 22 wolves legally harvested by tribal members from Colville and Spokane reservations in 2021
https://wdfw.wa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/02707/wdfw02707.pdf 12 total harvest by tribal members in 2025.

Harvest occurred every year inbetween as well.

Your experiment will probably play out in California deer and elk herds.

 

[atlas]

The ecological norms that have been relatively consistent for over a 120,000
years are in complete choas.

Glacial maximum 20,000 years ago.. I think we should be much more worried about habitat destruction. The elk and deer have handled a lot of climate change.

Lakes that are now all but gone too.

 

[Mustangs Rule]

The only wolf hunting that occurs on the coastal PNW is on on Indian Reservations, through treaty rights that supersede state hunting laws.

https://wdfw.wa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/02317/wdfw02317.pdf 22 wolves legally harvested by tribal members from Colville and Spokane reservations in 2021
https://wdfw.wa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/02707/wdfw02707.pdf 12 total harvest by tribal members in 2025.

Harvest occurred every year inbetween as well.

Your experiment will probably play out in California deer and elk herds.

https://idahocapitalsun.com/2025/06/11/river-of-no-return-how-the-nez-perce-tribe-stepped-in-to-save-wolf-reintroduction-in-idaho/

 

[Mustangs Rule]

https://idahocapitalsun.com/2025/06/11/river-of-no-return-how-the-nez-perce-tribe-stepped-in-to-save-wolf-reintroduction-in-idaho/

It is not "my experiment", it belongs to both nature and mankind. California offers none of the components for this to play out.

The 1,100 square mile Nez Perce land does, as does the 3,500 square mile Wind River Range Reservation. I like their idea that they are "wolf neutral". That is an excellent platform to come from as compared to protect all wolves or kill all wolves.

Sometimes some wolves need to be killed. Sometimes they need protection.

Being from Connecticut where Lyme's Disease came into an epidemic, I studied this disease. The Yale school of medicine and public health did what I thought was the best research.

Their conclusion was that Lyme's had been there for at least 60,000 years, fully contained by a healthy predator guild that controlled carriers. Once those predators, large and small were gone the disease exploded.

Africa and India are both having re-epidemics of old diseases that were wiped out. The cause is a collapse in the number of scavenging birds, vultures and buzzards, that were the disease immune clean-up crews.
Especially in Africa the leading cause of their death is lead from bullets left in gutpiles and poisons use by locals to kill large predators.

I am beginning to believe that CWD was always here, tightly controlled by a full predator guild. After many of those predators were taken down to near zero in some places, CWD appeared.

I know this conflicts with the other suggested conclusions as to how CWD arose.

 

[Bc1992]

What you describe above among Native Americans happens for sure. At age 48 I got bored with what I was doing, dusted off an old science degree I earned almost 30 years earlier from a fully accredited university, went back to school for years, brought my science up to date, earned a science education credential,

For next almost twenty years, I taught school and for a period chose to teach Native American teenagers. In all I taught 5 very different tribes.
One student came in one morning all proud that he had taken his first elk "last night".

In other situations,/tribes beginning hunters were given such a wonderful tradition filled education. It was a pleasure to watch. It went down them making their bows and arrows and hunting on land where their people had been for 15,000 years.

In the geographical area where I live the elk have always been here, for 15,000 + years plus, since they crossed the land bridge from Asia. They were never transplanted.

At least half the elk here have a genetic "speed bump" of resistance to CWD, slowing it down. Next, exactly where I live the elk have always had predators cleaning them. "Mt. Lions and Bears and Wolves Oh My" The elk herd's periods without wolves was relatively short.

There are 15,500 healthy elk, with no hoof rot or CWD or wintering contaminating feed lots, plus 21,000 deer with no CDW.

The human population is 7,500.

The big crisis in the natural system here right now in the high west is climate change. We have "snow drought". A warm angry northern Pacific Ocean, where heat is collecting at never before experienced levels, is sending over atmospheric rivers of warm snow melting rain. We have very little if any snowpack in the high country, which is becoming the "High- Bone Dry" country. Way too soon in the summer, w/o being naturally irrigated by melting snow, the high meadows are offering far less nutrition for elk.

The ecological norms that have been relatively consistent for over a 120,000
years are in complete

Tribes in the southeast are all for killing predators and would be against solar farms if they didn’t have serious financial incentives. Cwd is in the southeast but is not anywhere close to being as prevalent as it is out west where there is a way higher population of large predators and less ungulates.

 

[Mustangs Rule]

Tribes in the southeast are all for killing predators and would be against solar farms if they didn’t have serious financial incentives. Cwd is in the southeast but is not anywhere close to being as prevalent as it is out west where there is a way higher population of large predators and less ungulates.

The epicenter of the CWD outbreak was in Colorado. It would just make geographic sense that CDW prevalence was low in the SE, for now.

 

[atlas]

It is not "my experiment", it belongs to both nature and mankind. California offers none of the components for this to play out.

The 1,100 square mile Nez Perce land does, as does the 3,500 square mile Wind River Range Reservation. I like their idea that they are "wolf neutral". That is an excellent platform to come from as compared to protect all wolves or kill all wolves.

Sometimes some wolves need to be killed. Sometimes they need protection.

Being from Connecticut where Lyme's Disease came into an epidemic, I studied this disease. The Yale school of medicine and public health did what I thought was the best research.

Their conclusion was that Lyme's had been there for at least 60,000 years, fully contained by a healthy predator guild that controlled carriers. Once those predators, large and small were gone the disease exploded.

Africa and India are both having re-epidemics of old diseases that were wiped out. The cause is a collapse in the number of scavenging birds, vultures and buzzards, that were the disease immune clean-up crews.
Especially in Africa the leading cause of their death is lead from bullets left in gutpiles and poisons use by locals to kill large predators.

I am beginning to believe that CWD was always here, tightly controlled by a full predator guild. After many of those predators were taken down to near zero in some places, CWD appeared.

I know this conflicts with the other suggested conclusions as to how CWD arose.

Have you been to the Nez Perce Reservation? Most of it is farm land and is private land. Pretty sad but a common tale. Not exactly.pristine habitat anymore. Outside of the river breaks theres a lot of cropland and grazing. I don't think you'll find many wolves.


The Nez Perce has done a lot incredible wildlife management work especially when it comes to salmon and steelhead. That article you posted about their role in wolf reintroduction occurred on federal land outside of the reservation. Where the wolves are at the will mostly of Idaho's hunting laws and management as long as they stay above ESA listed levels.


Also pretty hard to imagine we wouldn't have seen CWD if it was always there in wild mule deer in the 50s and 60s when predator levels were way lower and mule deer were at all time highs in population.