Recent content by BenA

Exactly. People think it has to be deer to deer, or deer have to be in contact somehow. They wonder how it seemingly jumps from one place to another. Prions can travel by all sorts of methods. Birds, water, tornadoes, truck, train, plane, seeds, hay, vegetables, etc.

I dug a little deeper: How could a disease spread from fort collins colorado to the gulf of mexico by water? A disease could spread from Fort Collins, Colorado to the Gulf of Mexico through a massive, interconnected river system that acts as a natural "liquid highway" for waterborne pathogens...

Maybe this is a reach, but I asked AI to locate the Fort Collins research center where CWD was first detected. Right next to it is Horsetooth Reservoir. That drains into the Cache la Poudre River. I then asked where that drains into and the final destination. Here's what came back: The Plains...

Yeah, that's the epicenter for CWD in Louisiana. They first detected it in Tensas parish in 2022. There have been 51 detections as of earlier this month in that parish. There have been 2 more positives in 2 other parishes. Right across the river in Mississippi, there have been detections since...

Wyoming also has shown a 10% annual population decline when prevalence rates get to 40% https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5004924/

Y'all need a DMAP program.

More hunters on the property? Sometimes we're hamstrung by regulations. Population management can turn into work.

In the south, they're routinely done as part of DMAP programs. Then antlerless tags are allotted according to those to the participants. But, in all honesty, it's not that hard to learn. It takes learning what deer browse looks like and plant identification along with their preference level in...

It depends on what browse surveys of the native vegetation shows.

Definitely not without permission. But, I think you can get there with regulation changes.

I'm not really against sharpshooting in areas where hunters won't step up and thin the numbers down. Just because an area may have tons of agriculture to artificially raise population numbers, doesn't mean that should be the population. Populations should be in line with what the native...

No, but I'd promote sound biological principles instead of aiming straight at CWD. In areas that have high populations, I'd open up rifle seasons to get those populations down to 50% carrying capacity. I'd hit those areas hard for does. There's no reason we should have 30 or 40 deer out in a 5...

For a cure? No prion diseases have a cure yet, and the livestock and human variants have been researched much more than CWD. I think it's possible for a cure, and I am hopeful. Once prevalence hits a certain point though, populations decline. Maybe we should just let it get there sooner.

My reason for bringing that up, is that we know deer are likely to visit these areas. Even in low population areas, the entire herd can be exposed through these vectors. No matter if there are 5 or 50 deer/sqmi, these areas are focal points for the area herd. Do we start testing seeds for prions...

CWD prions are able to be accumulated in plants like corn, soybeans, clover, alfalfa, etc. Also, it can be found and transported in various water sources waterholes, ponds, creeks, and rivers. I'm not sure how prevalence rates can be controlled knowing that. It seems like it's going to be...