Which CWD Approach Better - WI Let It Happen or Kill Them To Save Them?

[Cool Hand Luke]

Because no one can agree? See the thread on killing Canada thistle for an example.

Illinois sniped deer and rates went up. How much money should be spent on sniping deer? Last year ehd sniped our deer more efficiently than govt can. Nature healed itself.

I’ve never personally seen a deer with signs of CWD. Only heard of maybe 2 in my lifetime that other guys had tested (to each his own) and came back positive. I just don’t see it as the big bad virus they make it out to be. What I do see is populations getting wiped out in a state that already has trouble managing wildlife and habitat. I still don’t think the county next to mine has recovered from sharpshooting from 15 years ago. And explain to me how setting up bait piles in forest preserves with large populations is helping stop the spread???

Illinois is so jacked up. We get large parcels of land donated to the state every few years and instead of making them open to public hunting, they turn them into hippy preserves for all the Subaru people and then have to pay the DNR to sharpshoot because the populations are too high. How about letting people hunt the “public” preserves and let nature do as it’s done. Probably half the reason things are as bad as they are around here. The state takes control of the land and doesn’t allow hunting!!!

 

[Cool Hand Luke]

Here’s a recent article for IL’s CWD program. Seems like a bunch of hoopla that goes nowhere, just throwing crap at the wall and hoping it sticks.

https://v3-wp.huntillinois.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/CWDProgramUpdates2024.pdf

 

[Mortenson]

Haha, that 1st paragraph was a nice word salad. Who wrote that - Kamaltoe Harris? That report was written for the politicians and grant givers, not us hillbilly deer hunters. I stand corrected though. Illinois did reinstate the snipers this past year, after telling everyone they suspended them. I feel reassured knowing Illinois is back again to save the day.

 

[BenA]

Human transmission has been proven just as much as plant uptake transmission has, in that it hasn’t.

There is no science here. Lots of headlines and booga boogary.

Plants have been proven to be able to uptake CWD prions and transmit them to animals.

https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(23)02505-1?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2589004223025051%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

Highlights​

•
Abnormal prion protein can enter the roots of plants
•
Plants can translocate detectable levels of prions to aerial tissues
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Animals exposed to prion-contaminated plant tissues can acquire disease
•
Contaminated plants may represent a route of prion exposure

 

[T-Max]

We make management decisions on which deer to shoot, which deer to let live, which plants to kill, which to grow. Why shouldn't we try to manage the spread of a disease? If we "let nature take its course" and take a hands off approach, doesn't that go against what we're all trying to do as habitat and deer managers? We don't do that on our own properties. We don't take a hands off approach. We are very hands on. We kill stuff we don't want spreading all the time. There's thread after thread of how do we deal with this or that. Why do some people want to treat CWD any different from a management perspective?

I see and respect your point, but for me they aren’t quite the same. If I want to manage johnsongrass, I spray to kill the johnsongrass. If I want to manage eastern red cedar, I target and remove eastern red cedar. Unfortunately the common way to manage for CWD isn’t as straightforward. You can’t manage it in the same sense as we manage the rest.


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[BenA]

I see and respect your point, but for me they aren’t quite the same. If I want to manage johnsongrass, I spray to kill the johnsongrass. If I want to manage eastern red cedar, I target and remove eastern red cedar. Unfortunately the common way to manage for CWD isn’t as straightforward. You can’t manage it in the same sense as we manage the rest.


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I'd love to be able to kill johnsongrass and never have it again. As long as there's seed or plants near me, or animals bringing it it, I'll have more of it if the conditions are right. The same goes for sericea lespedeza. I'd love to be done with it forever. What I can do is minimize it or keep the populations low and control the spread. I don't think we've learned enough about CWD to control it. We may never do that. What I do think we should do is try to minimize the spread as much as possible. I'm not sold on letting mother nature take its course with CWD that same as I'm not comfortable with mother nature taking its course with kudzu. I think it would be a shame if we don't try to stop it.

 

[Angus 1895]

If a mountain lion and a bob cat can denature a prion in their intestinal tract.

I bet roasted / smoked to medium rare, and served with jalapeños and margaritas ……..I can denature it also.

 

[T-Max]

I'd love to be able to kill johnsongrass and never have it again. As long as there's seed or plants near me, or animals bringing it it, I'll have more of it if the conditions are right. The same goes for sericea lespedeza. I'd love to be done with it forever. What I can do is minimize it or keep the populations low and control the spread. I don't think we've learned enough about CWD to control it. We may never do that. What I do think we should do is try to minimize the spread as much as possible. I'm not sold on letting mother nature take its course with CWD that same as I'm not comfortable with mother nature taking its course with kudzu. I think it would be a shame if we don't try to stop it.

I agree, but my point is our normal management routine requires that we kill the “thing” in order to manage it. In the case of CWD, it cannot be removed directly so we may or may not need to negatively impact the thing we are actually trying to manage for. In the absence of a concrete answer I try to manage for the healthiest deer I can get. If that requires a reduction in numbers then that is what I do. I hope there is a definitive answer sooner than later and I hope it is somewhat “natural.”


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[Bill]

Radon Gas. No one ever knew radon gas existed in our basements until someone decide to test for it. Prior to that it existed but no one knew.

CWD . No one ever knew CWD existed until someone tested for it. Prior to that it existed but no one knew.

Why did they test for it? Because the government had a bunch of penned Mule deer to study that got sick.

I don’t know why they started testing for Radon gas.

Don’t hear much about Radon gas anymore but it was all the rage in the mid to late 90’s.
Too bad CWD didn’t suffer the same fate.

EHD is a much bigger and quicker killer of deer IMO, (which isn’t worth much). But the game depts know EHD is cyclical so they ignore it.

All this every deer gets it and will die from it is based on penned animals. Again all IMO. But I have less fear of CWD than I do of known deer killing viruses like blue tongue and EHD.

We can go around and around on it but we’re not ever going to agree.

Same as Covid which was going to kill us but I’m a pure blood and have had it twice and I’m still kicking.

 

[Mortenson]

I bought a fancy $200 radon tester. We live in a high area. My basement stays under 2. USA threshold for danger zone is 4. Euros go by 2. I do have a mitigation system. If 4 is the threshold im guessing 20 is probably actually safe. They say its the 2nd leading cause of lung cancer. Way below smoking. Who knows.

How about this theory - most of us have cancer. Maybe all of us?

 

[Catscratch]

CWD was first described 58 yrs ago less than a 9 hour drive from my house. I'm basically in the epicenter. In that time it's completely devastated my deer herd and destroyed the mature buck structure here.

 

[Howboutthemdawgs]

Radon is a still a thing here. We have put radon venting in every house. I have no idea if it’s voodoo bs but I do know the stigma hasn’t gone away for some folks.

 

[Telemark]

Radon is very dangerous. It is an alpha emitter that decays into an isotope of Polonium that is also an alpha emitter. Other alpha emitters include Uranium and Plutonium.

Alpha emitters are generally only harmful if inhaled. Alpha particles don't travel far, and they are easy to shield against. In fact, a sheet of paper, or even the cuticle of your skin can block alpha particles. However, if they hit unprotected cells, like those of the lungs, they can be devastating to the DNA.

Radon, being an alpha emitter and a gas, is an especially dangerous radioactive element.