Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Mule Deer - CWD?

People are pretty far removed from cattle too.

There's a master's thesis from Texas Tech published last December I believe that goes into depth regarding pronghorn susceptibility, for those who want to find it and read it. Search for Texas Tech pronghorn prion and it should show up.

Those prions are scary. They are heat resistant, aren’t destroyed by heat.

In surgery, if neurosurgeons get into a brain and if pathology shows it to be Creutzfeldt Jakob disease, all the instruments have to be destroyed. They can’t be sterilized by autoclave. Heat doesn’t neutralize them.

Those prions are that tough. CWD is the animal version of CJD disease, both have prions. In CWD prions are shed in feces, get into the grass, are eaten by other animals.

Now one’s genetic make up predisposed the ability to be infected. Evidently WT’s are more susceptible than other species, thus pronghorns being somewhat protected. But who knows were this is headed.

Studies are ongoing if there is a CJD variant in humans contacted from animals, designated vCJD. Reportedly there have been a few cases documented.

The pathology is spongiform encephalopathy, brain tissue is filled with many tiny holes, looks like a sponge microscopically, thus the terminology.

Not something to be messed with or taken lightly. Clinical course is rapid dementia and death. Pretty serious.

DF

Don't forget voting democrat.

Had an acquaintance and old college friend’s wife get CJD. He was an MD himself and noticed subtle changes early. The univ of Iowa medical center told him it would be “five years of living hell and then she’d die.” And that’s how it turned out. Sand in an hourglass is how he described her losing some brain function every day.

How’d she get it?

Sometimes you just don’t know.

DF

I have no idea n her case but generally, IIRC, the prion must be must be ingested via the GI system or by blood contact.

I find this whole deal scary, bet you do too.

You get it, you screwed.

Period.

DF

The animals and Birds we hunt...

CWD, WNV, Lymes....all in the last 15-20 years. Coincidence or a long term plan to eliminate hunting in another way. I do think it odd at minimum.

Covid????

I searched it and read it all. (Was a wildlife biology major so am familiar with the jargon and other terms.) It's very interesting, but am still skeptical since so far there isn't even any "external" evidence that pronghorns have contracted CWD, meaning observable symptoms.

Also tend to question the assumption/clain that pronghorns are more likely to contract CWD from mule deer than whitetails, because their range supposedly overlaps more. In much of Montana, whitetails and pronghorns overlap VERY often in irrigated hayfields.

Meaning...with your background, you can separate science from politics. A rare commodity these days.

If I understand what I’m reading, there is a genetic component needed to be infected. Pronghorns are pretty far from WT’s genetically, thus some protection.

If that’s the case, it doesn’t seem clear why pronghorns would be more susceptible to getting CWD from mule deer vs WT’s, range and contacts adjusted for.

Seems pronghorn genetics may be a limiting factor. Unless CWD is modified somehow going thru mule deer vs WT’s, just guessing.

There’s so much yet unknown it’s hard to make an intelligent guess. A thesis presents a hypothesis, in essence a question for which evidence is gathered to statistically prove or disprove.

Seems the jury is still out on this one. Lot more evidence is needed.

DF

I shot a cow elk in 2017 the was nearing the end of its cwd infection . She was frail looking and was standing in a creek guzzling water. Ishot her and drug her out of the creek by myself , maybe 200 lbs and was an adult cow. she looked like a rubber chicken I have picture isf anyone wants to know what they look like. Game warden took lymph nodes, positive of course. Last I saw her ,she was going in the horse burner at the dump.......

Yeah, when they say “wasting disease” they not kidding.

DF

If you go to the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department website, there's a map showing all the positive cases of CWD up to day before yesterday. It's very interesting....

To make it easy.

Should I be worried?

The epicenter of CWD disease is west of Cheyenne near the Nebraska border, this where the highest densities of CWD are found.

In the mid 60’s CWD was identified in a herd of domestic deer at the CSU/CPW research facility located on the west side of Fort Collins. The deer were domestic deer purchased from game farms in Minnesota and Manitoba. Whether the deer were infected before they arrived in Colorado or if they became infected after arriving has never been determined. At that time wild deer could come right up to the fence and rub noses with the domestic deer. Today there is a chain link 6 ft fence providing a 50 yd buffer around the facility.

The prions that cause CWD had only been discovered a few years before.

Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (try pronouncing it…..) occurs in a wide range of mammals, but some species seem immune to it, like many predators. In humans it’s known as Crutchfield-Jakobs disease, and it did jump species from cattle to at least one person in Britain. Usually it’s species specific, and jumping species is rare.

The Russian Czar family had the disease in one or more members every generation going back hundreds of years.

CWD probably originated in Europe, and like so many other diseases, successfully made the trip across the Atlantic sometime in the last few hundred years.

Transmission of disease is the biggest concern when artificially feeding wildlife. Some biologists say the practice will eventually come back to haunt us.

Casey,

Which is why the majority of positive CWD tests in Montana occur along the northern border with Alberta and Saskatchewan. Both still allow game farms, and many game-farms buy/trade animals with other game-farms, which also contributes to the spread.

Which is also one of the reasons Montana outlawed "hunting" on game farms--though apparently they can still raise animals for commercial meat. Though that proved far less profitable than "hunting," the reason most have disappeared....

John

You’re right John, I forgot to mention game farms as another primary source of a variety of diseases.

I think only Idaho, Utah, and New Mexico are now the only western states that allow high fence hunting these days.