Whistle Blown on Tennessee CWD

[EastTNHunter]

Latest I could find in the court case: Latest

Will be interesting to follow.

It’s a bad look for sure

 

[SixPoint]

Certainly possible. Definitely hard to tease these things out, especially when we’re dealing with wild populations on the landscape where it’s impossible to control, or even identify, all the possible variables at work. I guess it’s places like the Ruby that give me pause when it comes to the predator effects. I believe there is a full complement of large carnivores on the landscape in and around that area, and CWD prevalence has jumped to upwards of 75% or something ridiculously high. Why? Are predators not targeting them? Does the high proportion of private land ownership interfere with predators’ effectiveness? Is transmission occurring at such a rate that predation can’t make an appreciable difference? Could it, under different conditions? Is there something else entirely going on?

Just thinking out loud again. I am nowhere near familiar enough with the specifics over there to make any guesses and might well be way off base. But I find these kinds of questions interesting to mull around.

As someone unfortunately familiar with the situation in the Ruby I can shed a little light on the situation at hand. The prevalence being observed is due to the extreme density of whitetail deer in the valley bottoms and the further congregation of animals during winter months. Once prevalence breaks the double digits and populations remain high the disease will seemingly spread exponentially. "Density will drive prevalence, until prevalence drives density." This disease is going to continue to spread in areas of extreme deer density up and down the river bottoms in the state.

Regarding predators the only one that is taking whitetail deer with consistency in the Ruby would be coyotes. A lion may occasionally get one down low, black bears and wolves are rarely around and griz aren't really a thing in the valley bottom yet thankfully. I have no doubt that the coyotes have keyed in on wtd being more of a food source (easier to catch) now than they were 10 years ago. It would be interesting to note if they can detect an infected deer or if they are merely picking up on ones that are not functioning as normal. I know Penn State is working with a breeder in MT to train dogs to detect prions in deer feces, so it's defiantly possible that predators could put it together.

When you step back and think about CWD and the future of hunting it is about as depressing as it gets.

 

[ChrisB]

But if there is a solution out of this CWD mess, I would bet money that people with those “high level degrees” will be the ones that find it.

That's probably true. BUT and it's a big BUT it will be the ones who look at the data without the bias being told by those in that community at large. It will be ones who look at it objectively and try to look at it from a different perspective. No different then COVID it was the doctors who looked at the data and found ways to help people but didn't tow the mainstream line that there was nothing really that could help people other then a new experimental injection.

 

[jonrob]

Is there any new information on the court case?

 

[Oak]

So many CWD threads, I wasn’t sure where to put this article from this morning. If for no other reason, read it for the compelling sentence, “Montana, for example, is famous for its deer hunting.”

Possibility of wildlife-to-human crossover heightens concern about chronic wasting disease

 

[elkduds]

So many CWD threads, I wasn’t sure where to put this article from this morning. If for no other reason, read it for the compelling sentence, “Montana, for example, is famous for its deer hunting.”

Possibility of wildlife-to-human crossover heightens concern about chronic wasting disease

From the article:
And it is extremely difficult to eradicate, whether with disinfectants or with high heat — it even survives autoclaving, or medical sterilization. Cooking doesn’t kill prions, said Osterholm. Unfortunately, he said, “cooking concentrates the prions. It makes it even more likely” that people will consume them,

 

[BuzzH]

So many CWD threads, I wasn’t sure where to put this article from this morning. If for no other reason, read it for the compelling sentence, “Montana, for example, is famous for its deer hunting.”

Possibility of wildlife-to-human crossover heightens concern about chronic wasting disease

Read that this morning.

Lots of clickbait, including the title.

 

[brocksw]

Nothing earth shattering

 

[Benfromalbuquerque]

There was SARS in 2003, big scare and quickly went away. 17 years later a genetically similar variant came around and you know. I support the development of field test kits or whatever these several hour tests will look like.