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

I see in the new Idaho Regs that it is mandatory to check any deer taken in a unit bordering Montana. It seem that it is here and spreading. How have you been dealing with game taken in area that have CWD? Is it the beginning of the end or is there hope?

centershot;
Good afternoon, I hope the day down in southern Idaho is as mild as it is up here in the Okanagan today and that you're well.

Obviously I'm not Mule Deer and not in Montana, but as an FYI on CWD, we had our first two deer in BC test positive last season.

https://bcwf.bc.ca/chronic-wasting-disease-detected-in-b-c-deer-for-the-first-time/

The news release from BCWF said they were south of Cranbrook so depending on exactly where, they could be within spitting distance of the medicine line, closer to Bonner's Ferry or Libby so either state.

We've been turning in heads for a couple years now here in BC to see if we can at least know where it is.

Also there's pretty strict regulations about bringing game meat in from out of province. Here's a copy of what's in the BC Hunting synopsis now.

50. To possess any part of a Cervidae (caribou, deer,
elk, moose), that was killed outside of British
Columbia, other than (1) the edible meat of the
four quarters, loins, neck, and ribs, or (2) the hide,
antlers, and skull plate if, before being brought into
British Columbia, the part is cleaned in a manner
that removes all tissue.

Again, that's just how the neighbors to the north are dealing with it and nothing more.

Hope that was helpful to you or someone out there.

Dwayne

A perusal of the IDFG website and regulations shows it's recommended for any unit that borders MT, UT, or WY, not mandatory. It's mandatory in units 14, 18, 23, 24, and 32A, none of which border those three states.

There are a few small areas in Montana where CWD is pretty common--which is why our game department has been holding special hunts to reduce deer populations in those areas, mostly whitetails, since they tend to test positive more often than mule deer, elk, and moose. Our local area isn't one of the hotspots, but we've had a couple whitetails tested, which turned up negative.

Last fall I killed a cow elk in an area around 150 miles east of here, where so far no animal has tested positive within around 100 miles. Didn't get it tested, both because of the present results, and the were none of the indicators of possible infection.

One of the good things about CWD is evidently only "deer" can get it (whitetails, mule deer, elk and moose). Pronghorns can't, and we usually get at least two every year....

CWD is said to have originated in Colorado decades ago just south of where I hunt, and most people around here don't get their deer or elk tested. If people in other places think that people in Wyoming are crazy, maybe that explains it.

Here is the link to the MT FWP map showing the distribution in MT of positive CWD results and sampling location: MT CWD Distribution Map
Here is the link to the MT FWP CWD management program: https://fwp.mt.gov/cwd
Here in MT, CWD continues to spread among Cervids, although it appears that deer are the most susceptible, especially whitetails.

Here is the link to the USGS's National Wildlife Health Center map showing the distribution in North America of positive CWD results by location:
https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/distribution-chronic-wasting-disease-north-america-0
Note: using different shading highlights, the USGS map shows the locations of CWD positive areas prior to 2000 and today. It appears to me that the disease is either spreading rapidly, or there has been more testing, or both.

I bet that Idaho F&G is actively testing they will find CWD in the Panhandle counties, and sooner rather than later.

There is speculation that non-cervid ungulates, including pronghorn, are susceptible. I've not heard of any positives outside of cervids and the testing of them is likely next to nil. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7009333/

From memory, I think it was detected in Idaho's west side as well.

Whttail in MT;
Good evening sir, I hope you and yours are well tonight.

As mentioned, we're trying to get ahead of CWD coming here, which according to the bios I've spoken to is only a matter of time.

I've not heard of it going outside of cervids either, but strange things happen.

A couple years back when we had a heat dome hit here in June, we got a really bad case of Blue Tongue blow up all the way from New Mexico or Utah - south of us by several states anyways.

When it did, we were informed at a recent wild sheep disease symposium that for the first time in everyone's collective knowledge, it caught onto our California Bighorn herd and killed a bunch of them.

Now they are and already were suffering from M. Ovi which the bio and provincial vet described as an immune compromising disease so that likely was a corresponding cause or surely might not have helped them.

Also one of the younger bios mentioned that he's not keen on becoming "Patient Zero" as far as catching CWD from an ungulate he's killed and he's studied it a fair bit more than I have.

I appreciate all the input and information as it's all new to me, though some family do live in the CWD zones in southern Saskatchewan and hunt there as well.

Thanks and all the best.

Dwayne

I'm a bit north of the ID CWD zone, but have no illusions it won't eventually find it's way here. Might be here already? The last 3 years I've sent in lymph nodes from every deer and elk I've killed. No positives yet. Worst thing about the whole deal is waiting 4-6 weeks for the results.

The IDFG has been heavily culling deer and elk in the CWD zone and from what I've read, 10% of the deer culled have it. CWD is on the move and now is south and west of the first finding of it.

From BS-ing with others on the campfire, in states that have CWD going back 20 plus years, those guys don't seem to worry about it much anymore and don't bother testing.

I wouldn’t eat a deer if I knew that it had CWD, which means I would test every deer harvested in a known CWD zone. Convention wisdom said it cannot infect humans, but there have been some studies indicating that that may not be entirely true.

I saw an article (can't remember where) last week that said there were two deer hunters that apparently contracted CWD from a deer they had killed and have subsequently died from it.
The article suggested that CWD appears to have made the jump to being transmissible to humans, though it did say test were, as yet, conclusive.

The abstract did not go so far as to make the claim they developed CJD from eating CWD positive deer meat. It didn't even state definitively that they ate positive deer meat; rather, it said they ate meat from a CWD-infected deer population. If the authors knew that for sure, wouldn't they say the two men at CWD positive meat rather than how they framed it? You can read the actual abstract linked in this article if you'd like: https://www.themeateater.com/conser...wd-kill-two-unnamed-hunters-probably-not

Furthermore, new strains mean a claim today of not jumping the species barrier doesn't mean that will always be the case.

That article was published in 2020, and in the four years since there still haven't been any reports of pronghorns being infected--including field reports of external symptoms.

i was told in early 70`s that the CWD would end up being in every state ,like has been said it did probably originate in Colorado ,probably a man made disease by our government ,injected in sheep ,sheep got out of uncontrolled pen infected deer probably ? and now the rest is a nasty history , this synthetic disease , we don`t seem to have a way of getting rid of CWD yet ,even burning this disease won`t destroy CWD .Pete53

The family that pronghorns are in, the Antilocapridae, is pretty far removed genetically from the deer family, so that's probably why we haven't seen any CWD in pronghorns so far.

How to control chronic wasting disease
A prion sickness similar to mad cow is spreading rapidly through North America’s deer and elk populations. A veterinary microbiologist discusses the options for keeping it in check.
A lethal, incurable malady similar to mad cow disease is sweeping across deer species in North America and starting to spread around the world. First identified in a single herd of captive mule deer in Colorado in 1967, chronic wasting disease — CWD — has now been found in captive and wild mule deer, white-tailed deer, elk, moose and reindeer. It’s been found in 32 states and has crossed international boundaries into Canada, South Korea and Norway, among other countries.
The disease — caused by a rogue protein known as a prion — has not yet been shown to infect humans, though fears remain. But even if that never happens, CWD could kill off large numbers of deer and possibly wipe out individual populations. Wildlife management agencies may, in turn, introduce stricter hunting rules, and the fear of contaminated meat could scare away potential hunters, affecting the United States’ roughly $23 billion deer hunting industry.
Since CWD’s emergence, scientists have been working to understand the disease and how it might be brought under control. Over the years, three potential mitigation strategies have emerged, but each has significant challenges. Nicholas Haley, a veterinary microbiologist at Midwestern University in Arizona, coauthored an overview of chronic wasting disease in the 2015 Annual Review of Animal Biosciences and has been working on the problem ever since. Knowable Magazine spoke with Haley about the options and whether we can ever contain the disease.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What’s a prion disease?
CWD isn’t caused by a bacterium or virus, but by a naturally occurring protein in our cells twisting out of shape.
The Kurt Vonnegut novel Cat’s Cradle describes the discovery of a new form of ice, ice-nine, which is solid even at room temperature. In the book, when ice-nine touches water, it forces all the other water to crystalize in the same way, until all the water on Earth is frozen. That’s kind of what’s happening in the body. An animal gets exposed to the prion, usually through ingesting it, and anywhere in the body that the prion encounters the normal version of itself, the abnormal protein convinces the normal protein to take this misfolded shape.
This is particularly dangerous in the central nervous system, because these proteins can build up into plaques that kill the cell. Eventually, enough cells die that you get nervous system disorders. The animal begins to behave oddly and eventually dies.
In the meantime, the sick animal can spread the prions to other animals through things like its saliva, urine or feces. The prions are very hardy and can stick around on plants or in the soil until another animal comes along and eats them.

Prion diseases such as chronic wasting disease spread when a misfolded protein helps others to misfold as well. Here’s how it happens: A: A misfolded copy of the prion protein (green square) enters a cell or tissue; B: A normally folded copy of the same protein (blue circle) encounters the misfolded one; C: The misfolded protein causes the normal one to misfold as well, causing such proteins to accumulate; D: The harmful proteins go on to induce still more proteins to change shape; E: Misfolded proteins can be shed and go on to infect other tissues and other animals.
Could we just kill all the sick animals before they can spread the disease further?
Unfortunately, that only really works if it’s done early enough. It’s like a wildfire — the sooner you can put it out, the more chance you have of keeping it from spreading. But if you let CWD fester for any length of time, then culling probably won’t work.
New York State, for example, did a huge culling operation in Oneida County back in 2005 after they identified five or six CWD-positive deer for the first time. That seems to have worked, and the state still tests animals for the disease to try to catch those outbreaks early.
But when wildlife managers tried localized culling in Colorado, it didn’t seem to affect CWD over the long term, possibly because the infectious protein had been in the area for so long that it essentially became baked into the landscape. The protein is incredibly stable and can exist in the soil for years. Or new, sick deer may have moved into the now vacant area from nearby populations. Deer aren’t symptomatic until the later stages of the disease, but they’re likely shedding the prion into the environment some time before then.
So if culling is really effective only early on, are there other strategies that can help in places where CWD is already “baked in”?
My work is largely focused on breeding CWD-resistant animals — not curing the disease, but trying to find animals that don’t get sick as easily. We’re working with a deer farm used for hunting. They have a few properties, representing about 600 to 800 deer, where CWD has become common. We first identified CWD there in 2014, and within a few years a deer on one of those properties had about a 60 to 70 percent chance to be positive for CWD.
We also did genetic testing on the animals. We found that something like 80 to 90 percent of the deer had one particular genetic variant, or allele, of the prion protein that seems incredibly susceptible to infection. But that’s only one allele out of about five possible ones in deer. And it seems like some alleles are more resistant to CWD than others.

Deer affected by chronic wasting disease, such as the one pictured here, are often emaciated and show signs of lethargy and lack of coordination. Eventually, the disease will kill them.
CREDIT: TERRY KREEGER / USGS
Why?
It’s like a lock and key. The infectious CWD prion is a very good key for that one really common lock, but with different alleles, the lock is subtly different, and the key doesn’t work as well. We’re still learning exactly how it all interacts, though.
Over time, we started to focus on two different “good” alleles. I think our end goal is to use artificial insemination and other breeding practices until we have a population of animals with just the good alleles, eliminating the one we know is terrible.
Would having only animals with good alleles stop the spread?
It could make it manageable. The animals with those good gene variants are significantly less likely to get CWD, but they’re likely not completely immune. We’ve been putting more of the animals with good variants out into the farm and can see that fewer of them seem to be getting infected by the time they’re hunted — on one property where we’ve introduced a lot of selectively bred deer, we haven’t found a positive case in the past two, if not three, years.
So selective breeding might work like the Covid vaccine: It’s still possible to get a breakthrough infection, but it’s had a huge impact on slowing the disease down and minimizing transmission. And at that point, there may be management tools we could use to keep it at essentially zero. If it takes these highly resistant animals five years to get sick, but they’re all being hunted by the age of three, then eventually we won’t have any CWD, for example.

Once restricted to a handful of counties in Colorado and Wyoming, chronic wasting disease has spread to 32 states and several Canadian provinces, where it affects both wild and farmed deer populations.
Could selective breeding work for wild animals as well, not just captive ones?
That’s a really good question. This kind of selection is happening naturally in wildlife — natural selection will favor resistant animals over time — but it’s much slower. I could see the release of captive-raised animals happening in controlled situations, such as where CWD has completely wiped out a local population. But just putting one or two bucks out onto the landscape — their genes would get diluted pretty quick.
And while there are precedents for breeding animals on a farm and releasing them into the wild, a lot of wildlife professionals are heavily against that. They want to keep wild populations wild. To introduce farm deer would taint it, in a way. And it’s something you can’t walk back. I understand that perspective. A lot of wild animal folks are putting more hope into vaccine research instead.
I know we have vaccines against viruses, but is it possible to make a vaccine against a protein?
We already do. The Covid vaccine is specifically against the spike protein of the Covid-19 virus, for example, not the virus as a whole. And prions are just other proteins. So a vaccine could theoretically work, creating antibodies that can bind to the prion protein, helping the body recognize and eliminate it.
But the problem with chronic wasting disease is that, unlike Covid, a healthy version of the problem protein already exists naturally inside our bodies. Trying to develop a vaccine that can target the unhealthy version of the protein while not attacking your healthy cells, that’s the challenge.
The way the disease works in the body might also make creating a vaccine harder. Researchers in Wyoming did some vaccine trials and found that when elk were injected with a particular experimental vaccine, they got sick faster.
What we think might have happened was this: White blood cells will naturally kill invaders and take the remains back to lymph nodes to teach the body what they saw, and activate defenses. Getting a vaccine can speed up this process by making the white blood cells better at detecting and picking up invaders.
But the problem is, in this case, that the white blood cells couldn’t destroy the prion after they picked it up. It was still infectious. So all they did was more quickly bring the prion to somewhere where it could spread, like ants bringing poison back to the nest and spreading it to others.
That isn’t to say it’d be impossible for vaccines to work, and there are groups working on the problem. I want to be optimistic. I just have reservations about it.
Also, even if we get an effective vaccine, we’d also need to figure out a good way to distribute it. It’d be impractical to use an injection on wild animals. There is a baited rabies vaccine that’s been used in the eastern United States that can be dropped out of a plane. Hypothetically, something like that could work for CWD. But there’s a lot of things that we’d have to overcome.
So overall, what do you see as the outlook in terms of managing and containing CWD?
It depends a lot on how people react. Unfortunately, states’ responses have been varied. Some take it very seriously, but some states try to sweep things under the rug. I’m expecting that, within our lifetime, it’ll be in every state in the United States except for Hawaii.
And then what? Do you think this will eventually go away? Or are we just going to have to live with it?
I think it’ll be like Covid. It won’t ever go away. It may not be as big of a deal in 100 years, but it’ll still be there.
And fingers crossed it never jumps into humans?
Yeah, well, cross your fingers harder.

Read something recently, forget where, that said it appears that wild felines’ digestive systems destroy the prions, unlike canines’, which can spread them intact in their droppings.

AFIK, feeding and baiting deer isn’t widely practiced in the West, Texas excepted, but here in the East, baiting and feeding are generally illegal in known CWD areas, and the adjacent ones. VA has banned natural urine-based deer scents as well, statewide. They also have limited mandatory testing, and transportation restrictions.

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.