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CWD progression

Antler Daddy

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How much longer till everybody has to debone a deer before they leave Land Between the Lakes or FTC?

I don't think the carcass transport rule is slowing anything and is just a dang hindrance.
 

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How much longer till everybody has to debone a deer before they leave Land Between the Lakes or Ft. Campbell?
I haven't heard of any plans regarding LBL or Ft. Campbell (yet).
My hope is some of the CWD fear-mongering will die down before it happens.

I don't think the carcass transport rule is slowing anything and is just a dang hindrance.
Let me say I know less about this than many others, but I tend to agree with you, that the carcass transport rule probably is doing more harm than good, overall.
 
That is the least of my worries, deboning is actually not that bad. But I do know it will lead to more wanton waste by those too lazy to take their time deboning. If it went that far that fast, it will be no time before the entire state is covered and these restrictions will be a moot point.
 
I don't think the carcass transport rule is slowing anything and is just a dang hindrance.

I agree. Maybe it has happened but I've not heard of any case where the occurrence of CWD has been tied to the transportation of dead deer. I'm not sure it has even been tied to the transportation of live deer; it just seems to pop up. Live in a CWD free county within a hundred yards of a CWD county, hunt a hundred yards into the CWD county, and you can't bring your kill home without deboning. Yes, that's an extreme example but it illustrates the absurdity of the rule.

I guess that it's helpful that CWD deer know not to wander into a CWD free county. Government reasoning at its best.
 
I agree. Maybe it has happened but I've not heard of any case where the occurrence of CWD has been tied to the transportation of dead deer. I'm not sure it has even been tied to the transportation of live deer; it just seems to pop up. Live in a CWD free county within a hundred yards of a CWD county, hunt a hundred yards into the CWD county, and you can't bring your kill home without deboning. Yes, that's an extreme example but it illustrates the absurdity of the rule.

I guess that it's helpful that CWD deer know not to wander into a CWD free county. Government reasoning at its best.
A lot of folks aren't as hindered as you or I are on that. I live literally on the state line. I see deer cross from TN to KY and vice versa daily. Luckily I live on the KY side and my hunting is in KY so doesn't affect me with the state line law that's in place. My dad lives 1/8 mile up from me on the TN side. If he kills one in KY he can't even take it to his house. It's a hindrance but I fully understand they can't make exceptions to the ones that live on state lines and county lines.
 
What about the folks who live way over on the east side, reckon some don't care if it spreads as they have it why shouldn't everybody? while there is no cure they are trying to slow down the spread, not sure there are any natural barriers that will help much but to do nothing seems wrong. When it is state wide deboning wont be a thing any longer but that might take many years. time will tell.
 
History shows how quickly CWD spreads out once it reaches critical mass. It's only been 5-6 years since it was discovered in West TN. We know it was there for many years before it reached critical mass. Now that it has, it will spread quickly across the state. Slowing the spread is a common practice but hard to prove or disprove its effectiveness.

Biologists still don't understand all the ways it spreads. That's one of the things Ames is studying right now. Whether or not the state tries to inhibit the spread, it will happen sooner or later. I'm guessing sooner. I think this transport rule is just one of a multi pronged approach they have adopted and continues whether it works or not.

In my opinion, a few years from now CWD will be found in virtually every county in TN. Since most of the TN whitetail herd (I believe) is west of the TN river, the majority of the herd has already been exposed.
 
Without any evidence of how long its been in WTn it's a crap shoot as to how fast it progresses, It may have been there since the first Deer Farm went in. it may spread faster than some folks think or could imagine. Regardless it will change deer hunting as we know it for a long time, every year something will change 1 way or the other,
 
I agree. Maybe it has happened but I've not heard of any case where the occurrence of CWD has been tied to the transportation of dead deer. I'm not sure it has even been tied to the transportation of live deer; it just seems to pop up. Live in a CWD free county within a hundred yards of a CWD county, hunt a hundred yards into the CWD county, and you can't bring your kill home without deboning. Yes, that's an extreme example but it illustrates the absurdity of the rule.

I guess that it's helpful that CWD deer know not to wander into a CWD free county. Government reasoning at its best.
The evidence CWD was spread around the country by the transportation of live deer - often illegally - is VERY strong.
 
If it went that far that fast, it will be no time before the entire state is covered and these restrictions will be a moot point.
I don't believe dead deer carcasses had much to to with the spread.
The spread was more about the transport of infected live deer (initially).
Then, dispersing & rutting bucks spreading it further, and further.

One thing that may spread it more than hunters' transporting their carcasses is the spread of prions by vultures that consume the deer killed by CWD. Vultures are migratory and "hunt" both sides of major rivers.

Are most deer that die by CWD (year round) just consumed by vultures & coyotes, then the prions are spread far & wide by, vultures & coyotes?
 
I don't believe dead deer carcasses had much to to with the spread.
The spread was more about the transport of infected live deer (initially).
Then, dispersing & rutting bucks spreading it further, and further.

One thing that may spread it more than hunters' transporting their carcasses is the spread of prions by vultures that consume the deer killed by CWD. Vultures are migratory and "hunt" both sides of major rivers.

Are most deer that die by CWD (year round) just consumed by vultures & coyotes, then the prions are spread far & wide by, vultures & coyotes?
Then again the digestive juices in the guts of scavengers may destroy the prions.
When it first was discovered I had a long discussion with our local commissioner. We discussed the problem with prions could potentially be spread through blood on boots, and truck beds. We also talked about transfer through mud and dirt carried east on atv's, trucks, etc. There's hundreds of ways of possible transfer. I don't think anyone knows for sure.
 
Then again the digestive juices in the guts of scavengers may destroy the prions.
When it first was discovered I had a long discussion with our local commissioner. We discussed the problem with prions could potentially be spread through blood on boots, and truck beds. We also talked about transfer through mud and dirt carried east on atv's, trucks, etc. There's hundreds of ways of possible transfer. I don't think anyone knows for sure.
When I was in Norway I read about an area there that had an isolated outbreak. Their theory was someone brought it in on their boots. Not sure if they ever figured it out.
 
1 thing I am wondering is the weight of the prions are they heavy enough to sink into the ground and out of the food chain, if they are light can they be flushed by rains/ect. lot of stuff you don't see asked or answered. Also if plants are picking them up are they changed in any way? I would think it rare that anything isn't changed in some way when ran through plants and animals.
 
1 thing I am wondering is the weight of the prions are they heavy enough to sink into the ground and out of the food chain, if they are light can they be flushed by rains/ect. lot of stuff you don't see asked or answered. Also if plants are picking them up are they changed in any way? I would think it rare that anything isn't changed in some way when ran through plants and animals.
I have always wondered about this as a possible spread. It ran through West Tn quickly. I wonder if seeds being planted is part of the spread since West TN is mainly a planting region. Who knows!?!?
 
Once brought into a region, it is primarily being spread by normal deer behavior, especially buck behavior. It is being spread by interaction with bodily fluids - saliva and urine. There is a reason bucks get CWD at a higher rate than does. Bucks perform far more social interactions involving bodily fluids. They urinate in scrapes, they taste the urine of other deer at scrapes, etc. Now all deer interact with each other's saliva at licking branches, and that where does are picking it up.

And because this disease spreads most readily through normal deer behavior, there's nothing we can do about it. We will have to let Nature work it out.
 
1 thing I am wondering is the weight of the prions are they heavy enough to sink into the ground and out of the food chain, if they are light can they be flushed by rains/ect. lot of stuff you don't see asked or answered. Also if plants are picking them up are they changed in any way? I would think it rare that anything isn't changed in some way when ran through plants and animals.

They're doing research into this now and it appears to differ based on soil types.

A remarkable property of infectious prions is their persistence in external environments, especially their ability to remain infective for years to decades [3,4] (footnotes noting studies indicating presence of prions a many as 16 years after contamination)

Our results suggest that the migration of PrPCWD​ through soil will be minimal in natural soils with a silt loam/clay loam texture, mte mineralogical composition and high HA content (Figure 7). The majority of PrPCWD​ shed into these soils will remain at or near the location of deposition and be bioavailable. However, soils with a sandy texture and illite or quartz mineralogical composition will facilitate movement of prions into lower soil horizons due to the lower prion binding capacity of illite and quartz compared to mte.

 
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