During a recent meeting by the Southeast Deer Study Group deer biologists, veterinarians and others remained concerned about the future of CWD in... Read more... The post Deer Biologists: CWD Remains a Challenge appeared first on Bowhunting.com. Continue reading...
Chiming in for 130woodman and Innovative Outdoorsman.... Durkin sucks! Durkin is a laughing stock! CWD is made up by the government! There - saved you guys the trouble.
If they want people to take CWD serious, they need to quit cherry picking stats to scare people making it look worse than it is. In this article they are claiming 50% infection in bucks in some areas which is completely false. The truth of that is in those areas 50% OF BUCKS TESTED which is a big difference. Testing is not random, it is done mostly on animals that people have suspicions of. One of the worst areas Iowa county, 25% of animals tested (220 of 879) does that mean 25% of the deer in Iowa county have CWD, no. There were 5110 deer killed in Iowa Country if we use the same 220 positive tests that drops the infection rate down to 4.3%. Is that number correct, probably not also but I would wager it is closer to the truth than 25% is.
Or people need to stop burying their heads in the sand and be willing to accept that infection rates are high and continue to climb. How do you know this? Have you spoken with the hundreds of people who brought samples in to be tested? Or is that just an assumption? The sampling numbers show infection rate in mature bucks tested is nearing 50%. That's a cold, hard fact. It doesn't? Without sampling every animal killed in the county, the most logical way to determine infection rate is by sampling a fair number of them. The bigger the sample the more accurate the data, however that 25% mark probably isn't far off from the truth when 17% of the deer harvest is being sampled. LOL I would say if you truly believe the infection rate is much lower than sampling is showing you should be encouraging the DNR and the hunters in that area to bring more deer in for testing. Let them help prove your point.
Yes sampling a fair number can give you an idea only if the sampling is random, which is not the case. We are basically testing animals suspected of having CWD, because people are not bringing in deer to be tested they believe to be healthy. What we are doing is like sitting in an emergency room and looking at patients. Hey look there were 20 patients 4 of them had broken arms. That must mean 20% of the area has a broken arm. It doesn't work that way. Yes there is a trend up, but no where near what they want to claim. that is why they only give us partial information (percentage positive). They want people to believe that in 2005 the infection rate was 2.3%, that it increased to 9% in 2011 and to 23% in 2015 (still using Iowa Country). That is accurate if you only look at the Percentage positive tests. And by just those numbers I would also be concerned. But I don't just take what they say as gospel so I dug into the numbers. In 2005 Iowa Country had 115 positive Tests, in 2011 143 and 152 in 2015. Do those numbers look like a shift from 2.3% up to 22.9%? Not to me so what is the reason for such a big shift in percentage. Perhaps it is because in 2005 they tested 4990 deer, 2011 that dropped to 1567, and in 2015 dropped even more to 662. Now consider that Iowa County normally harvests about 5000 deer, so in 2005 they pretty much tested every deer, and now they only test about 15%. When we have all the numbers to work with it clearly shows that while CWD has been gradually getting worse it is no where close to as severe. I would like to test everything so we know exactly, but that isn't going to happen. I read that it cost about $90 per test, at over 600,000 deer harvested I don't think anybody is writing that check anytime soon.
As a Wisconsinite I really wish there was a better way to voluntarily submit samples. One year they had a head drop off station at a meat processing place I pass on my way home. I think it cost $10 or $15 to have it tested by the DNR, I would gladly do that each yer if it were available. Now if you are not in an area they are testing you have to go to an area where they are testing or have it tested by a private lab which last time I checked was over $100.
Since when does 600,000 deer get harvested in wisconsin. Not even close to that number. Hunters yes. Deer killed no. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Grabbed the wrong column. Still would be looking at over 20 million to test all deer harvested. Sent from my iPhone using Bowhunting.com Forums
