MD,
Glad to see you point that out, Eagles are also possibly thought to be a vector for CWD.
Currently research is showing a specific genome that is possibly already existing or is becoming resistant to CWD.
I tend to follow Kroll on his thoughts as to CWD and I do understand that some say he is biased.
However massing the research that has been accumulated on CWD from both sides of the fence, I don't put much "fear" into the fact that it will be the end all of our Cervids. Our leading big game wildlife biologist of whom I worked under for several years says that we will most certainly know CWD's full effect in the next 3-5 years and that either the fear will be validated or in his opine, likely not due to the short life span and high reproductivity of Cervids in parallel with adaptation.
Either way , it is something to definitely consider both long and short term.
When it comes right down to it, I am for protecting hunter recruitment, hunting heritage and hunter driven economy via proper and aggressive management for optimum sustained hunter harvest, not foot holding the anti hunters with their new found anti hunting silver bullet called protected predator re introduction.
