All Things Habitat - Lets talk.....
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A cure for CWD?
- Thread starter JackTerp
- Start date
SD51555
5 year old buck +
Agreed. This guy's research should be shut down. Research dollars should be centered on the cull.
Big Snow Man
5 year old buck +
I just hope they get a field test out that’s accurate
Mortenson
5 year old buck +
I agree let the guy carry on with his research. 300K is peanuts for what's at stake. Just curious, are there any other doctors in his camp sticking their necks out? Heard there's Yale doctor who also says it's not prions, but I think she's thinking virus and not bacteria. Be a lotta culling before this all gets squared away.
Mortenson
5 year old buck +
Since cwd can be spread via deer to deer contact, they will tell you reducing herd size will reduce deer contact. Pretty coincidental that around here though, they spend all their time culling herds in high auto traffic areas. More highly populated areas that happen to have some timber nearby.
Bill
Administrator
That’s a joke if anyone missed it :)
sagittarius
5 year old buck +
The lower the population, the fewer deer spreading CWD across the landscape, slower the infection rate increases. Testing only gives an indication of what the infection rate might be. CWD can be difficult to gauge if you are only testing 1% of the deer and trying to detect a 1% infection rate or less.
S.T.Fanatic
5 year old buck +
100% testing of all hunter killed deer nation wide will show what is really going on and we can put it to rest. Slowly county by county, state by state, they are figuring out there is money in CWD that they can get out of hunters and taxpayers.
Lets test them ALL nation wide and then make a decision on how to move forward before any more of the herd reduction tactics take place.
Lets test them ALL nation wide and then make a decision on how to move forward before any more of the herd reduction tactics take place.
Catscratch
5 year old buck +
Theoretically culling could slow the spread but I see two issues with culling: # 1 is that they really don't know how common it actually is at the moment. Increasing testing is going to increase recorded incidence so it's going to look like it's spreading as testing becomes more prevalent, even if it isn't. That doesn't necessarily mean it's spreading though, it could mean that you are finding more because you are now looking more. #2 - culling might eliminate deer that have a genetic resistance to the disease from the gene-pool.
It would be unfortunate to find out (after culling large numbers of deer) that the disease has been common for 50yrs, but the population was fine due to the frequency of an allele that provided resistance. It would also be unfortunate to not cull and have CWD reduce deer populations to unhuntable numbers across the nation (which is ironically might what happen due to culling). No easy answer at this point. I hope someone finds something soon (that isn't a money trail).
It would be unfortunate to find out (after culling large numbers of deer) that the disease has been common for 50yrs, but the population was fine due to the frequency of an allele that provided resistance. It would also be unfortunate to not cull and have CWD reduce deer populations to unhuntable numbers across the nation (which is ironically might what happen due to culling). No easy answer at this point. I hope someone finds something soon (that isn't a money trail).
swat1018
5 year old buck +
I could see culling having a place when a region has the first outbreak, near a high fence operation like in MO. But now in MO nearly half of the counties in the entire state are part of a "Containment Zone." I think it's a little late for that. What are they containing? It's not politically correct to do nothing, so they are killing the before they get sick.
BuckSutherland
5 year old buck +
CWD is fake news. More manufactured crisis used to kill off the herd and drive hunters from the sports and away from their guns. The only time in the last two years that I have held a gun was during rifle hunting. If the deer are gone I really have no reason to pick one up for recreation anymore. Same reason they let the god damn wolves run wild all over northern MN. And lets not forget the money these people will take from this. HUGE FRAUD.
bowhunternw
5 year old buck +
Culling in areas that are new infections, is absolutely the best thing they can do. Why not buy some time and prevent it from spreading like wildfire. I have come to terms that I would rather have very low deer densities than a million sick deer in the state. Maybe some miracle cure will show up but I'm not counting on it.
Bill
Administrator
Please don’t take this as an attack on you. I understand what you’re saying. But I’ve been reading about the terrible CWD disease since the mid 1980’s. I’ve yet to see a picture of more than 1 or 2 infected deer outside of a pen. Show me 10 wild deer together that even slightly look infected and I may “may” understand culling. I drive through ground zero in MO and see lots of deer. Not one looks sick to me.
sagittarius
5 year old buck +
Sick deer will likely be killed by a car or coyote due to loss of brain function, long before they are wasted away and drooling. If you saw 10 sick wild deer standing together infecting the landscape, you would be 20 years too late.
SD51555
5 year old buck +
If you accept their explanation as a way to contain the disease, you realize it's a complete waste of time and resources that has resulted in failure everywhere it's been tried. It makes zero sense.
When you wrap your head around the idea that it's a well crafted excuse they've been waiting for to green light the extermination of the herd, it makes perfect sense. In MN, they've been trying every trick under the sun to wipe out the SE MN herd for 15 years, APRs, early hunts, 13 tags per person, and none of it has worked. APR's produced gigantic deer and everyone was seeing them. So instead of pushing harvest pressure onto the doe population, many guys held out for monster bucks and the herd grew and grew.
Now, the con game is entering it's final phases. We don't know how viable the cure is, but there is no risk in trying. The guy isn't asking for a billion dollars to finish his work, it's $300,000, and the USP in Pennsylvania is trying to pony up $250,000 of it. You know the smear campaign is on because the deer groups and state game agencies are lining up to try to discredit this guy. NDA, Blufflands, PGC, and now hunters themselves are joining in the Defeat The Cure movement. Watch as the articles and experts appear to try to turn everyone against Bastion.
CWD is the cure. The disease it's fighting is the whitetail population. States and deer advocacy groups are marching hand in hand to try to prevent a CWD vaccine from happening.
S.T.Fanatic
5 year old buck +
How do you know if they are new infections if every deer in the area hasn't been tested? You don't. Nobody has any clue how long CWD has been here because testing is a new thing.
