CWD found in west cocalico twp Lancaster county Bad news

Geez, sorry to hear that.....I'll be interetsed in seeing what the most recent states are going to do in an effort to control it.....

Same thing they do everywhere else.....kill everything that moves

Nobody has a reasonable method of controlling it so they just want to kill every deer in the vicinity. The prions remain in the ground so when the deer finally return they'll get it again.

And the brilliant government cycle continues.

So what do you propose Bruce? Do you have an alternative solution in mind? Please share.

That was a penned deer. Fact is no one knows what to do, so it's pretty easy to point fingers. It's been in Pa. for six or seven years at least now and only 50 +/- have been discovered to have it, and some of them were pen raised. Odd that it is thought to have begun with pen raised deer...or maybe not odd.

It's all over our state but thr DNR only admit that it is in a couple counties

My own opinion is that if it becomes an issue in your area you ban baiting and feeding to reduce prion concentration. Beyond that let nature take it's course.

How does it improve the herd by killing them all off to stop a condition that is being spread by a protein that can't be eliminated?

Double thumbs up for JusPassin.

There is NO scientific data available that predicts if an individual deer will contract CWD if exposed to the prion. It might be an extremely small percentage that can, in reality, contract the disease. In fact, mass extermination may actually be killing healthy deer that have developed resistance and would pass this on to offspring. And mass killing assumes that each and every deer is a candidate for CWD. NO evidence to support it.

I'm all for nature taking its course. Under the current line of CWD thinking, once the prions are in the soil, EVERY DEER in the vicinity would need to be killed. And the first deer back into the vicinity becomes the first candidate to possibly contract CWD from the prions in the soil. The DNR can test 2000 deer in a county during a season and find no CWD, but that's not to say that it isn't there. All that says is that no deer with CWD were killed by hunters. All it takes is one, or two, or five CWD deer hanging out on property where no hunting is allowed. So much for the "kill as many as possible" practice.

Wild reindeer in Norway have it. They probably didn't catch it from USA whitetails. It may have always been around.

The following information is extracted from a lengthy, heavily researched article I wrote back in 2003 wherein I documented what was believed to be the "point of origin" for CWD. The full treatise is available to anyone who wishes to PM me.

The truth is that no one (not even the National Institute of Health nor the Centers for Disease Control) knows for a certainty how it (CWD) got started although there is a feasible theory and it – the point of origin - was not commercial deer farms. The first identified case (and presumably that point of origin for all the ensuing outbreaks) of Chronic Wasting Disease was discovered at a state-run wildlife research facility at Fort Collins, Colorado in 1967. Further evidence of the culpability of this state wildlife agency, cervid farmers claim, can be found in an incident that took place in 199l, fourteen years after Chronic Wasting Disease had been identified but prior to the disease being discovered in wild, free-ranging herds.

In that year, the Colorado Division of Wildlife confiscated a number of wild elk that had been illegally captured and they held these reclaimed elk in an enclosure that was known to be a CWD positive facility. Those elk were then traded by the Colorado Division of Wildlife to game farms in return for red deer (a European species of elk) they were interested in studying. Historical evidence suggests these “trades” were the “immaculate conception” for the introduction of Chronic Wasting Disease into captive herds on private farms.

The game farmers’ assertions, however, only make sense if the premise is accepted - and some wildlife researchers do - that CWD mutated from another “transmissible spongiform encephalopathy”” (brain diseases that include Mad Cow and Creutzfeldt-Jacob as well as CWD) that had heretofore been found exclusively in sheep. According to this premise, “scrapie” is believed to have jumped the species barrier at the Fort Collins facility where the reclaimed elk and the infected sheep were penned together.

In about a 8 mile radius here in Hurlock Md. we had a serious out break this past season where well over 100 deer were found dead but this was farmers relating their find in fields while harvesting and the numbers were 12 here.15 there and so on and so on.After talking to several hunting buddy's the groups of deer they would normally have has dropped in number's from seeing 30/40 deer to less then 3 on occasion. Not sure exactly what was found but the number of deer I used to see in one field nearly every other day came to a halt and lucky to see 1 a month now?

Another deer farm case. CWD in wild deer is very rare as evidenced by the roll back of CWD zones in PA last year.

Keepers, sounds like those deer died of EHD and not CWD.

Keepers, sounds like those deer died of EHD and not CWD.

Excuse me, Keefers not Keepers

The original origins may not be known but from what I've read, it very likely did come from the CO Fish and Game captive animals as indicated, BUT that's no longer the point. It's here and we have to find a way to deal with it. Yes, the prions can live a long time (maybe forever) and even if they kill off most/all of the infected animals, it is possible others could pick it up later. However, the fewer infected animals on the landscape the fewer prions there will be and the less chance it spreads further. For those that don't like the "kill em all" approach - do you have any better ideas? Wisconsin did very little/nothing to eradicate it when it was first found and now it's prevalent though much of the state. From what I've read NY took the approach of exterminating animals and have contained it relatively well. MN is taking that approach and so far it seems to be relatively successful. We will see, but at least it's an effort. No matter how it got here or keeps spreading, it still seems likely that the farmed cervidae industry is the prime suspect for new infections. Many/most initial cases seem to be associated with infected farms. But now that it is so common every hunter needs to take some responsibility to reduce further spreading, ie: don't move whole carcasses around state to state or from one infected area to another. Bone out or quarter your meat first (prions seem to be isolated in the brain/spinal tissue), quit using deer urine/lures (you can kill deer without it), etc. Many things to slow it's spread but IMO get involved and make sure your state does a good job policing (or eliminating) the cervidae industry (demand double fencing for one), because they sure aren't doing it themselves! And for those that think it's no big deal look at some of the newer medical research that indicates it might be possible for it to cross the human barrier. Do we really want to take that chance??? It probably won't affect most of us old guys (incubation or time until symptoms develop in humans seems to take years), but do we really want to be feeding infected venison to our kids or grandkids, or leaving them a world where they can no longer feel safe eating venison?? Think about that one!

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