Well I thought about not even making a thread about this, but I feel like everyone needs to see it. I always hear people saying that they never find any dead deer in the woods or that CWD isn't a issue. Well to all the haters, here is proof. We've known about this buck for 2 years and he has always appeared healthy. In mid December, he shed 1 side and started to look different. By Christmas, he had shed his other side and the final pictures we got of him were on December 30th. Clearly he looks sick and we figured he was dead and close. My cousin went out January 6th to look for him and found him dead roughly 75 yards away from the last photos. He contacted the WI DNR and they said if we wanted to get it tested, we could. So he cut the head off and we got the news today that he indeed tested positive for CWD. I hated to see a buck like him go out because of CWD but it just shows that deer do in fact die in the wild because of this disease. I've attached some photos of what he looked like before he started showing signs and the last photos of him.
thanks for sharing- there was a story from Alabama(?) last season with very similar results. They actually saw it die in person after several days of encounters. Hard to believe the rapidity of decline- that buck looked pretty healthy on 12/09 and was a complete wreck less than 3 weeks later...prior to seeing this I honestly would probably not even have had it tested through that 12/9 pic (although I would have by 12/15.) Definitely changed my mind on that. I know plenty of people on here who pooh-pooh eating CWD+ deer but I don't want to be the first known case of deer/human transfer. I'm sure the first guy who got HIV was like "bah, nobody gets sick from diddling chimps." What county in Wisconsin?
Sauk county. We were shocked how fast he went downhill and we were hoping it was something like an infection from fighting or something else but in the back of our minds we figured it was CWD.
But Chris Brackett, Jay Gregory and Ted Nugent told me that CWD is a hoax and I shouldn't be worried about it.
I wish Ted Nugent would get CWD. Pretty sure he will contract that before ever being admitted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
I seriously wish Oklahoma would get ahead of this a ban feeders before it hits here. More proactive vs reactive. And to clarify, it is my understanding that CWD in contracted by deer eating/licking the same ground a CWD infected deer has.
I feel the same way about where I hunt (SC). But I think we'll have to have a documented case before anyone takes action. Some have speculated that it can be spread through avian scat via eating carrion. The prions can survive going through the digestive process of birds. Wish I had a link, but I do not.
Banning feeding/baiting will have little to no effect on the spread of CWD. Deer are social creatures and they're going to interact with one another and be exposed to saliva regardless of whether it's at a corn pile, in a food plot, at a licking branch or simply deer-to-deer contact. The only thing that's been successful at least slowing down the spread of the disease has been a dramatic reduction in herd size, which is something hunters don't really want and often fight against. But, as they say, you can't have your cake and eat it too.
This is already happening in humans. They get it in bottle and can form at bars. Luckily for the humans water, greasy food and some aspirin will help in the recovery the next day. Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
I have to disagree with the scope on this. Direct deer to deer transmission only would spread significantly more slowly than when coupled with centralized feeding areas. Remember chicken pox parties? If not google it.
My point was it has little effect on the fact that it's going to spread one way or another. Is there a possibility for it to spread slightly faster due to baiting/feeding? I suppose so. But to what end is the true effectiveness of additional legislation and laws that are only meant to temporarily slow something down? I guess I'm just asking if the juice is worth the squeeze.
I get it, I just think you may be underestimating the amount of exposure a bait pile invites. One infected deer slobbering over a pile of corn or gnawing on a sugar beet, then 5 more deer come in later and eat that infected food, then 5 more deer the next day... rate of exposure is exponentially more than just direct contact with an infected deer. Plus, my experience with baiting is that does/fawns hit bait piles much more frequently than bucks; and it's theorized that CWD is more prevalent in bucks due to their fighting and sparring (more face-face contact with bodily fluids.) So bait piles increase the rate of exposure to does and fawns and thereby more quickly undermines a herd. I've hunted over bait in states where baiting is allowed and hunted without bait where it isn't. Never had it affect my hunts much. To the point where other than out of season for camera purposes I haven't baited in a long time; it's just not worth the hassle. I understand that a ban does hurt farmers; I imagine demand for beets and apples has dropped pretty hard in Michigan since the bait ban. But better to take that hit now and slow the spread than in 20 years if the herds decimated and demand for bait drops anyway due to no hunting. Bait bans aren't a silver bullet but in the battle against CWD nothing is. Going to take a multi-faceted approach until if/when a cure is developed.
Baiting is bad but apple and pear trees around a clover food plot is ok? How about we just stop with captive deer farms.
