Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire CWD in PA

last year a friend gave me two deer he had legally killed.. he only wanted the Back Straps, they were dressed properly and were done very cleanly...so I finished cutting them up as I have always done with my deer...5 years ago while hunting I saw a doe dying.. I could not see any wounds on her but she could not get up , it was muzzleloader season I diden;t want to shoot her , so kicked her in the head and she died instantly. I figured she had CWD as it was reported in this area.. I diden,t hunt any more that year... but am wondering how safe is it to eat deer in PA..the guy that gave me the deer has ate the backstraps and diden,t get sick..... I an getting ready to cook some steaks from the deer he gave me... how safe do you think they would be??

Cook thoroughly and you'll be fine.

At least that is what they say here and we've had it for a long time.

As far as I can tell, there have been literally zero cases of CWD in humans. I'm sure plenty of hunters have eaten meat from animals that had it, so the risk has to be exceptionally low.

It’s a prion, not bacteria. Cooking at temps we use doesn’t break it down. So cool thoroughly doesn’t do anything for this.

The people who don't eat venison are the ones telling you that. LOL

It's similar to mad cow disease and folks in England have died from it. You roll the dice.

Cooking denatures proteins, so it would likely work just fine.

However, were you to acquire a prion infection from CWD, you would literally be the first in the world. So the risk is effectively zero regardless of meat preparation.

It's similar in that they're in the same class of diseases, but that's it. We've now had documented CWD for 43 years (and likely far before that) and nada in humans.

Actually it's the DNR.

Apparently we had one[1] deer found after last fall with CWD in my home county here in SWVA.
The Game Dept is going completely bat scidht crazy over this one [supposed] case.
They are sending damage permits to ALL residents within a 5 mile or so radius whether they requested them or not.
The hammer will start getting dropped on does this weekend, and granted it is needed.

The odd item in all of this:
NO intact deer carcass is to leave the county.
Opening day of rifle season ALL bucks killed in the 'hot' county are to be checked for CWD, IN THE NEXT COUNTY OVER!?!?

I read a study last year where they tried to pass CWD in a lab setting and it was very hard to do so. It was easier for CWD to go to bovines. Plus they found that “mad cow” was easier for us to get. Personally, the prion stuff is still a theory and how it is really transmitted leaves me feeling like we don’t really understand it yet. I would you say you have a very low risk of getting sick. Obviously don’t eat meat from one you know was sick. My 2 cents.

As mentioned above, there are NO known cases of humans getting CWD. Also mentioned is the idea "don't eat meat from sick animals". Those two items pretty well sum it up, IMO

The Pa. Game Commission has a section on their website with a TON of information about CWD.

https://www.pgc.pa.gov/Wildlife/Wildlife-RelatedDiseases/Pages/ChronicWastingDisease.aspx

The link should take you right to the section.

Dale

Takes years for anything to manifest

Enjoy

Last I had heard the only deer with CWD in PA where transplants that escaped a farm. I hear very little about it compared to other states I’ve lived or hunted in. I eat game from PA extremely rare and no issues. If I walked up on a sick animal I’d probably bury it or leave it for bears after punching my tag but my wife worked for CDC so we are probably overly cautious about some things.

I cooked and ate some deer steak today, so we will see if there is any reason for me to worry.... I brown it in a skillet and add mushroom soup and simmer for a couple hours,, I love it that way...

Cooking will not kill CWD.

The temps to kill prions are over 850 degrees for greater than two hours. Have to denature the prion to a point it will stop the inappropriate protein folding it causes. The prion is in nerve tissue and brain tissues. Not muscle fibers typically. Can take months to many years for symptoms to develop.

That protein misfold causes spongiform encephalopathy, a neuro degenerative disorder. Which is terminal. There is no cure or treatment for this. Just hospice/palliative care.

So cooking at the temps we use will do absolutely nothing. Given time we will find cwd has or will cause human disease most likely. Small chance that cwd will not be able to infect humans let’s hope it can’t. We still don’t know how it manifests itself in humans either.

So I would not eat meat from any obviously sick bovine, or any that test positive for cwd. Just not worth the risk.

You're way behind on information then. Disease Mgmt Area (DMA) 2 has plenty of wild deer testing positive, they think it came up from Maryland in that unit. DMA 3 has wild deer testing positive. The latest unit (DMA4) is in Warren county and that one is at a deer farm. See the link I posted above.

Dale

Ivermectin will kill the prions.

Smear it on like a honey Dijon