# Chronic wasting disease



## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

I thought hunters, especially bow hunters might be interested in the Peterson Hunting "The Out Fitter" article on page 11 of this month. I just got it today.

Anyway biologists are still trying to figure out how CWD is spreading. It has been found in 140 captive deer herds. Now here is the scary thing. You know that deer pee we buy and put on our boots? Well, that may be the culprit. That deer pee is produced from captive herds. Because of it Virginia is the most recent state to ban deer urine. Other states that have already banned deer urine is Alaska, Arizona, and starting in 2016 Vermont. The Archery Trade Association Director said they have no plans to oppose the bans. Ten captive deer herds are providing 90% of the deer urine we use. I have bought my last bottle.


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## dakotashooter2 (Oct 31, 2003)

I quit using deer pee years ago................ Just didn't find it that effective..

One thing that surprised me in that article was when they questioned how CWD could suddenly show up hundreds of miles from an infected area. There are many documented cases of deer, usually bucks, traveling hundreds of miles. Often times it is young bucks seeking out new territory but it can also be breeding bucks.......It only takes one infected deer. What I didn't know was how tenacious the disease is. Once it is in the ground it is there forever. :crybaby:


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## north1 (Nov 9, 2010)

Haven't read or studied about CWD but it sounds a lot like anthrax. Have their been any studies done to see if it is similar?


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

north1 said:


> Haven't read or studied about CWD but it sounds a lot like anthrax. Have their been any studies done to see if it is similar?


Not that I know of. I can't understand why it keeps showing up on game farms. Farms that are tested and clean, and say they have purchased no new deer come down with CWD. 
My vision of urine collection was plastic tubes and sterile conditions. I didn't know urine, crap, and saliva all drained from a stall and had to be filtered.


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## Habitat Hugger (Jan 19, 2005)

Interesting! I didn't know how it was collected either. I assumed it was something like a "Texas condom" that is sometimes used on incontinent humans, or borderline humane systems used to collect pee from horses for estrogen extraction. I never have used the stuff anyway.......I mainly bowhunting around ranches where deer are used to human smells, etc. and believe it or not put a drop or two of diesel fuel on a boot. Call me crazy but in those circumstances, around farmyards and machinery, it is the best cover scent going.
Has the G &F released any results from their CWD testing from last fall. Damned prions......


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## dakotashooter2 (Oct 31, 2003)

The article indicated at one game farm extensive measures were taken to sterilize the area and they still couldn't eradicate it.

Another thing to consider is that it isn't unusual for deer to winter on ranges many miles from their home area. If you have a wintering area that draws deer from 5-10 miles in each direction it's pretty easy to see how over the course of a few years the disease could move from one location to another.


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## southdakbearfan (Oct 11, 2004)

Anyone else ever think that it's always been there off and on in all herds and that we just figured out it was there in the recent past?


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

southdakbearfan said:


> Anyone else ever think that it's always been there off and on in all herds and that we just figured out it was there in the recent past?


That's a good question. Our country is relatively so young, and technology to find it so new that no one will ever be able to answer that question. The very strange thing is how often it happens in game farms. The article said 140 game farms have tested positive. It makes me wonder if it has always been there, but shows up with high population density or stress. We don't know much yet. I hope they can find enough funding for research because it's important enough to get a handle on. Perhaps it will require extreme control, perhaps it will require non. I will stick to the better safe than sorry position. It got me to 67 years old so far.


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## indsport (Aug 29, 2003)

A little history http://www.cwd-info.org/index.php/fusea ... t.timeline. I agree it may have been present before we started to understand it and we just could not detect it. However, it begs the question, considering what a CWD infected deer looks like, you would think a lot more cases would have been noticed earlier by the public, by hunters, and by fish and game departments. Misdiagnosed perhaps, but doubtful. I posit CWD is a fairly recent phenomenon and not something that has been around a long time.


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## Habitat Hugger (Jan 19, 2005)

I have no scientific proof of this, but my gut feeling is that it has been around for.a long time. It doesn't rear it ugly head in animals or Scrappie in sheep or Mad Cow in cattle or CZ disease in Humans till the affected/infected mammal is old. In the old days, if an animal got older and sick it was eaten by wolves, bears, etc and its brain NOT autopsied by a veterinary pathologist. If a human was infected by it, as the life expectancy was under 50 years they would die with it but not from it. Nowadays if there is any suspicion of a human having the disease their brain is looked at by pathologists, electron microscopes, etc. 
Now that we are aware it exists, we can autopsy brains of suspected mammals, but research into all these CJ like diseases, prion caused, is in its relative infancy and we are only scratching the surface of prion disease. Only recently we've even discovered that they exist. 
I'd sure keep an open mind about it all till more research is done. The nature of Prions is far different than bacteria or viruses. A totally different problem. Would be nice to look ahead 30 years and examine the future research! My Xtal Ball doesn't work so well, though. If it did I'd be able to tell everybody where the fish are biting and where the 200 bucks are hanging out!


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## north1 (Nov 9, 2010)

I am certainly not very educated on the subject but the little research I have done shows there is some conjecture on whether it is prion based. Some research has shown a possible bacterial or viral link but seems not enough has been done. Enough, however; to not completely rule out bacterial/viral cause. Obvious it is not like anthrax or related like I stated earlier but it's longevity in soil would be similar. When we used to have cattle we were having trouble with spontaneous abortions. Vet took soil samples but could never nail down a probable cause. Advised us to move our winter feedlot to a different area. After that we never had problems. The area we were using was a feedlot used by great grandfather years before. My father always thought there was something pervasive in the soil that was carrying over and causing the problems.


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## Chuck Smith (Feb 22, 2005)

Another take on this is:

With Urban sprawl and deer having to get into bigger and bigger herds because of the human race expanding and taking up its habitat. This may make CWD spread faster than it did in the past.

Also with what others have been saying..... Weak deer were eaten by predators. Well less predators now people are seeing it more in the for front.


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## dakotashooter2 (Oct 31, 2003)

I remember talk od cwd in western ND back in the mid to late 80s (no mention of it in the link). Around "88" we bowhunted in western ND after Christmas. I had been a particularly mild winter so far. I found 3 separate deer that hunt that had appeared to have died in their beds with no apparent wounds ...........


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## blhunter3 (May 5, 2007)

I wonder if it has been around for ever, but we are just noticing it now. Sick deer in the wild get eaten so that's why we never find them, and the deer herd get tested for it, so that is why it always seems to happen to them more often then in the wild. I think that CWD does need more research so we can learn more about it.

Another thought is why the penned deer seem to get it more often is maybe their food source is contaminated. I would assume most of those people that raise the deer, always get their hay and grain from the same fields or general areas.


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## dakotashooter2 (Oct 31, 2003)

One also has to consider that deer in captive herds are somewhat "sanitized". Rather than acquiring natural immunities they are often "pampered and medicated to keep them healthy. Often times that backfires.......Every generation depends more and more on supplimental health measures.


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## Habitat Hugger (Jan 19, 2005)

Interesting discussion and good points made by all! That's why I like this website! 
North, that is a great observation made by your father. Sure makes one wonder if there was/is something in the soil that the experts were unable to identify that was causing the repeated spontaneous abortions.

Off topic but it reminds me of a guy named John Snow in the early days of Cholera research in England who more or less discovered the cause and main spread mechanism of the Cholera Organism by careful observation and keeping records of cases and deaths and what wells the affected people were getting their water from, then figuring out the flow patterns from well to well. Sometimes a single anectotal observation pays off, big time,

I would assume they looked for Brucellosis and all the known bovine abortion causing diseases. Interesting! I haven't read where prions were possibly associated with bacteria or viruses though. Research is ongoing but in perspective, being relatively unusual it isn't a very important disease in humans, so erase arch money is probably better spent on more common diseases.


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