Did you bother reading the regulations? I live in TX and they clearly state you cannot break a deer down any further than the 4 quarters and backstraps in the field. That is the minimum you must take off a deer but you can also take the neck meat, rib meat, flank meat and shanks but the 4 main quarters and backstraps must be whole. It is NOT legal in TX to completely bone a deer out in the field. That is the law and I seriously doubt an outfitter in TX encouraged you to break the law. Not buying that part of it.
For all you idiots calling the GW a dick, he is enforcing the law. When you hunt in states other than your own (I have held licenses in 13 states) you need to read the regulations for those states. I grew up in CO but when I hunted in WY, MT, UT, OK, TX, CA, AZ, NM etc... I made sure I did things in accordance with the laws in those states and ignorance of the laws will not prevent getting a ticket.
He never said he did it "in the field".
In TX anything besides the final destination or a processing facility is considered in the field. A member posted the regulations. Go read them.
After passing along very incorrect info about CWD and how it spreads, it's more than a little ironic that you're so matter-of-factly directing everyone to the official info...
If CWD in muscle tissue or leg bones was such a concern nobody would allow any game to be transported. Most states understand that it is mostly the spine and brain. And if you think I am wrong about the TX regs, go read them
No, it's not mostly in the brain and spine. That simply isn't how CWD works. It's a TSE related to Mad Cow. Do you think people contracted that by eating brain and spine? As far as anyone knows, CWD is not transmissible to humans but it also hasn't been studied long enough to know if there are long-term consequences to consuming infected meat.
Seriously... do even a minimum amount of research before spreading blatantly false information that will end up archived in search engines.
It's transmitted through body fluid -- urine, feces, saliva, blood, birthing matter -- which is why transmission happens most often when animals congregate to feed, drink, or give birth. (This is why it's a concern for elk but not as much as for deer... elk give birth in more isolated settings and aren't typically being artificially fed [corn feeders] in the wild.) The reason there isn't a concern about the disease being spread through de-boned muscle tissue is because that's the part of the carcass least likely to come into contact with another animal and further transmission. If you're traveling with a whole carcass, quarters, or other forms of meat on the bone, you're going to travel with more of the infected animal, process it at your final location, and then discard those extra parts somewhere. It's the discarded parts that biologists are concerned about. The prion involved with CWD is VERY long-lasting... it can sit in soil or on grass (birthing fluid, blood, urine, etc.) for a very long time and be passed from one animal to another that way. It can also be picked up by scavengers, moved, and then brought into contact with other animals actually capable of contracting the disease. This is why biologists put such a big emphasis on how you dispose of carcasses and specifically ask you NOT to leave them exposed in the field. CWD prevention at this point is mostly about keeping distinct populations of deer isolated from each other -- meaning isolated from the prions -- to avoid geographic spread.
