yoderjac
5 year old buck +
There is a link to the study itself with all the details, methods, and math in the articles.
MN CWD Hunt
- Thread starter shawnv
- Start date
There is a link to the study itself with all the details, methods, and math in the articles.
Did you read it Jack? They qualify their own finding by stating how challenging it was to study wild herds and how some of the results are suggested, not proven or observed. The cwd prevalence was 28.8% for bucks and 42% for does. Not 30% and 50% like suggested in the articles. 118 deer died during the study. 46 from hunter harvest, 17 from clinical CWD, and 20 animals died from capture related stresses. Do you think its a good study when more deer die from the study method that the actual disease they are studying? Some good things are noted though. Both infected and non-infected does gave birth to fawns at the same rates and the fawns were born NEGATIVE for CWD, and it will take 48 years for a herd with that high of a prevelance rate to become extinct if no management changes are made an no treatment for the disease is found.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Yes, I read it. By the way, I've never seen any evidence of CWD being transmitted through the birthing process. That is not new. Yes, I think it is a good study, one of quite a few. Publishing a study for peer review opens the door for professional critique. Most folks publishing studies like this are pretty conservative to protect their professional reputation. I didn't see anything glaringly problematic with their methodology.
The big question with this, and all the studies, is what management decisions are the best course. A full picture is rarely (and clearly not in this case) available when decisions need to be made. In anything like this, small changes made early can have a big impact down the road, and the further down the road you go, the more radical actions must be to have the desired impact.
If penned operations and transporting deer had been suspended many years ago, CWD would likely be much more localized than it is today. Managers are always working with fuzzy data and that is where judgment comes into play and where most argument begins.
Keep in mind that articles are generally written by non-scientists and significantly dumbed-down. Most readers are not interested in the intricacies of the science, they want the bottom line answer.
Thanks,
Jack
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
I think that ship has sailed long ago.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
WOW! Really does say something about management.
Yep...these idiots can't even follow their own protocols that they set up. Make one wonder about the accuracy of the CWD testing being done and if positive results are getting missed. Murk was gonna save us from this crap, but at this point, I highly doubt they even have a clue on how to even contain it. Lord knows they don't want anyone questioning or looking over their shoulder though. He's got his hands full now.
H20fwler
5 year old buck +
It hasn't here yet. We have had deer pimps shipping deer across state lines and knowingly not reporting diseased animals all so they can just make a buck at the expense of everyone that hunts wild deer in this state.
http://www.bucyrustelegraphforum.co...thanize-deer-farm-quarantine-broken/19734167/
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
I meant that it was penned operations that caused the broad spread of the epidemic. Most diseases like this start in some local area and spread outward. CWD got widely distributed with an unusual pattern. Hot spots began spring up states away. That was traced back to deer being shipped between penned operations and the disease taking a foot hold in a new location. This was probably the largest negative factor with penned operations. Yes their practices with feed and such may have contributed to the disease reaching critical mass sooner.
I don't disagree that private penned operations should be highly regulated or even eliminated but 90% of the benefit of doing this has been lost. Most of the damage has already been done as the disease has a very large footprint in nature now. That is what I meant by the ship has sailed.
Thanks,
Jack
With all due respect Jack, I don't think the ship has sailed on protecting our wild herds yet. There are currently 16 states that CWD has been detected in wild herds and a total of 23 states with the disease, three of which claim to have eradicated it. There are still large areas, especially in the SE that still have no CWD. There are also several states that have fairly small infestations that could have a fair chance of isolating the infestation. I do believe that until a possible treatment is found, some drastic actions would need to be taken to deal with it effectively. If CWD is going to be controlled, I think it will probably take federal USDA action to shut down ALL deer farm operations, as well as stopping all inter-state transportation. This would have to include intense monitoring, enforcement, and punishment. This would not be popular and thus will probably never happen in a timely manner, if at all. It seems to me at this point, that the states themselves do not have the experience, the guts, the will, or the intelligence to handle this situation.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
I think you are right about states that don't have it yet. They cracked down on regulating private pen operations hard here when it was detected near the border of a neighboring state. Also eliminated feeding (baiting as always illegal) and cracked down on bring back harvested deer from other states. The latest is the elimination of deer urine for hunting. I was referring to states where the disease is present in the wild population. While cracking down on pen operations is still a best practice, in many cases most of the damage has been done in those states. You are spot on in terms of prophylactic measures for areas that don't have the disease. Our state was pretty proactive in addressing it before it got here. I can't think of anything else they could have done. They seem to be managing it well so far here.
Beyond CWD, I don't think our next 30 years of increasing deer populations will continue here. Whether it is CWD, some other disease, or predation, we are in for a decline. I watch an interesting show on coyotes and coywolves (hybrid between eastern wolf and coyote). After removing most of the large predators from our eastern forests and opening the canopy along with regulated hunting (verses market hunting), we created the perfect conditions for the increasing populations we have seen here. Most of the show was following biologists studying coyotes and coywolves in urban and suburban settings. These coywolves are larger with stronger jaws and can and will take down adult deer. They have radio collared hundreds of these in some cities. The biologist following them in Chicago estimated a population of 2,000 coyotes in the Chicago metro area. They had neat video of them walking down streets within a few yards of people and dogs showing little fear. Evidently in Canada they now have a documented case of coywolves killing a healthy adult human. As complex is CWD and managing it is, the complexity of the total biological system makes it very difficult even for the competent professionals to develop a good management plan. Then, when you add human politics on top of it with some groups pressing for more deer and others pressing for less, I tend to pity even the incompetent folks in this field.
Thanks,
Jack
2 more tested positive in SE MN, bringing the total to 5 there. Complete news release from the MN DNR: http://news.dnr.state.mn.us/2017/01/10/cwd-found-in-2-more-deer-5-county-feeding-ban-now-in-place/
highlights:
Through Jan. 7, hunters killed about 575 deer in southeastern Minnesota’s disease management zone. Test results have been received for 272 of 430 samples, which include the two new discoveries.
Additional efforts to address CWD are in full swing in the 371-square mile disease management area centered around Preston.
..
Results of the aerial deer population survey estimate that there are 11,600 deer in an area that includes the disease management zone and an area to the north where the third CWD-positive deer was discovered. Population estimates show a higher density of animals within a 12 square-mile radius of the site near Preston where the first CWD-positive deer was discovered.
“The aerial survey tells us where deer are as well as where they are more likely to congregate,” Cornicelli said. “Knowing that helps us determine if more deer need to be removed in certain areas to better reduce potential spread of the disease.”
highlights:
Through Jan. 7, hunters killed about 575 deer in southeastern Minnesota’s disease management zone. Test results have been received for 272 of 430 samples, which include the two new discoveries.
Additional efforts to address CWD are in full swing in the 371-square mile disease management area centered around Preston.
..
Results of the aerial deer population survey estimate that there are 11,600 deer in an area that includes the disease management zone and an area to the north where the third CWD-positive deer was discovered. Population estimates show a higher density of animals within a 12 square-mile radius of the site near Preston where the first CWD-positive deer was discovered.
“The aerial survey tells us where deer are as well as where they are more likely to congregate,” Cornicelli said. “Knowing that helps us determine if more deer need to be removed in certain areas to better reduce potential spread of the disease.”
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Are CWD deer more or less susceptible to hunter harvest? Does the brain disease impair their ability to avoid hunters? Or, does this disease cause deer to respond in ways that make them less susceptible to harvest (seclusion)? Do deer display behavior that makes hunters more or less likely to harvest them? Without answers to these kinds of questions, it is hard to say if hunter harvested deer that are tested are representative of deer infected?
Thanks,
Jack
kl9
5 year old buck +
If you read the verbiage closely it says 11.6k deer in an area including the CWD zone. So they must've surveyed an area larger than the zone. Lou said DPSM of the zone was 23ish.
Jack - every deer harvested in the CWD zone in MN is tested. Despite the pictures we are often shown by governing agencies most deer that are harvested and infected with CWD are not displaying clinical signs. That is even true of Wisconsin's core endemic area
Jack - every deer harvested in the CWD zone in MN is tested. Despite the pictures we are often shown by governing agencies most deer that are harvested and infected with CWD are not displaying clinical signs. That is even true of Wisconsin's core endemic area
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
CWD is a progressive disease. Post mortem testing can show signs of a progressive disease before obvious symptoms appear. I'm suggesting that folks are using measured incidence in deer harvested by hunters as a proxy for the prevalence of the disease in the general population. This may or may not be a good assumption, but it is the best we have.
Thanks,
Jack
