Wisconsin’s CWD Rate Hits Record High

If you're for a ban on baiting to reduce the spread of cwd, you better be for banning any scent product that's made by deer urine. I personally think cdw is not a risk to the future of hunting/deer populations.

 

Justin is a fair guy as long as you stick to your argument and not make personal attacks go for it that's what this is for

 

Baiting and feeding is not the culprit of CWD spread in Wisconsin.

 

My personal opinion is that there is no stopping it or really even slowing it down. Baiting or using various Deer bodily fluids or banning them all together isn't the cause or the cure. It's just a witch hunt because we have to have something to blame, and we're grasping at straws. We can't forget that these are herd animals. They congregate together, they preen one another from head to toe. Bucks form Bachelor groups in the off season and then spread out and go from bedding area to bedding area, in search of Does. Does have Fawns and kick out the bucks when they hit a certain age and they go and seek out bachelor groups. So on and So on. Even if they found a cure they would have to Inoculate Every single deer for ever. The only way that I see this stopping is, letting it run its course, and the deer themselves building an Immunity.

I also believe that we hold a great deal of responsibility. We hunted deer so hard in the past that it greatly depleted the herds. So we tried to make right by protecting them to the point that the herds were and are so big that it was inevitable that something like this came along.

It sucks that CWD is around. If they ban all forms of baiting, or use of any deer bodily fluids, or any action that will cause deer to congregate to one area or funnel them to a certain point. More than what is already there naturally. That means that we can't do anything in the woods that will alter the deers pattern so we can have a chance at a shot or to grow healthier deer, i.e. food plots under a certain size relating to deer density, Watering holes, Mineral sites, intentionally Opening gates or cutting fence, bedding areas, hinge cutting.............. "You can't have your cake and eat it too" We can't pick and choose.

That being said I will abide by the rules and regulations that are put out every year as I have always done. As in the past I may scratch my head and mumble about some of them but I still will abide. These are just my opinions as stated, take a breath and think about them before you tar and feather me.

 

So the prevalence rate is 20-25% in the herd. The DNR's plan was to kill ALL the deer by any means. Free tags, sharp shooters over lighted bait piles and so on.
Because the southern portion of the state is made up of mostly private land there is no way the DNR could regulate/manage the herd in that area. Bulging deer numbers the DNR had to come up with something and CWD was it. Free tags, EAB, and food pantries accepting venison and the slaughter was on.
The DNR's plan and the hunters lack of restraint proves to be far more detrimental to the herd than the disease. When hunters hunted and shot deer rather than became land and game managers it was a non issue. Not many bucks seen 3.5 years of age and the disease would mostly be a non issue.
Will the disease kill deer? Sure. Will it kill all the deer? Nope! Even in the west where CWD has been around for 30+ years it hasn't. Let nature run its course and end the slaughter.

 

My farm is in Dane County which is right in the middle of the "hot zone" for CWD. In the early 2000s when CWD first appeared the DNR brought in sharpshooters to our area and killed off most the heard. I went from seeing 10-20 deer per sit to maybe 1 or 2 if I was lucky. Myself and surrounding landowners still bought in to the DNRs claims that killing off all the deer will eradicate the disease and continued to shoot every deer we saw. We couldn't have been more wrong. For the last 6 years we have been passing up does and letting the population build again since killing all the deer clearly didn't stop the spread. Our hunting is now almost as good as it was before the sharpshooting massacre occurred. We have big 170" 6 1/2 yr old booners to chase and never see sick looking deer. (Between us and the neighbors we run 100+ cameras) We've all eaten deer that have tested positive and no health issues have occured. I know for a fact the DNR will not be able to blow away all the deer again, landowners simply won't allow it. They tried it once and it did absolutely nothing except create ****ty deer hunting for 10 years. If I was finding piles of dead deer on my property I'd be concerned, but right now there are more important things to focus on other than CWD.


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If the DNR is promoting something, the likely hood of it being bull**** just hit an 11 on the bull****ometer.

 

But..... i'd gladly eat some chickens raised in the dark pumped with antibiotics.....Not to mention all the other bull**** that gets tossed into food. I'll take my chances with a deer. The food industry is about as trustworthy as letting MJ babysit your kids.

 

My family and I don't buy that kind of chicken, to each his own.

I wouldn't feed my dog deer meat that was untested from portions of Wisconsin.

 

It's not personal, i'm speaking in general terms. I don't know you or what you do and likewise for you to me. You eat whatever you want.
I would just say more people die every year from contaminated food that has been "inspected" by people that are paid to keep us safe. Don't even get me started on dog food...

 

This is the internet, nothing is personal.

If you hunted Iowa or Dane counties in Wisconsin, would you feed your children untested deer meat?

 

I would eat it myself, but when you bring the family into it I agree with you that I would get it tested. Do you have a spot i can hunt in either of those counties? That way i can test this out and let you know with certainty what i will do?

 

I don't. Let us know how it goes.

 

Im sure Justin is a fine fellow but he does not understand the subject matter. My father helped draft the WI CWD management plan. He devoted a great deal of time to it and continues to do so even though his appointment by the Governor has expired. The amount of scientific study and research he was exposed to is public info. Folks should educate themselves on the subject. Pat Durkin (the writer of the story at the heart of this thread) has not. He is an anti Walker, Anti Republican zealot with no plan, just protest because he hopes it will reflect poorly on those in charge. That has been his MO for years.


Chew on this. If 100% of the deer in CWD infected zone in Southern WI were killed today and a military occupying force were installed to prevent even a single deer from re-entering that zone for a period of 10 years and then that force were to step down and allow the reintroduction of deer, the new inhabitants would show the same infection rate over time as what we currently see.

The infective environmental reservoir (the soil) is 700% more infective than nose to nose contact with infected deer. The talk of banning baiting was an opportunistic snag by the DNR. Baiting is not a vector in CWD (If it were, so would food plots or any activity in which hunters congregate deer to a location for their advantage.)

The species barrier is sound and has been and continues to be challenged. Its no threat to humans or even cattle. We don’t test our deer any longer and we live in Southern WI. Killing all the deer to save the deer was a noble but failed attempt at man hoping to control that which he has no ability to control.

The twisted prion binds with the soil. Latency exceeds a decade. ATV’s and UTV’s transported to the infective zone and then trailerd to points far and wide transport the infective soils around the state and are a far greater risk than baiting but baiting was an all-to-easy feel good measure making humans feel like they were actually accomplishing something (we were not).

There is much more that could be written. The solution rests in for-profit companies generating cures that will be distributed via baiting and feeding which will be a fantastic irony. Don’t waste your time reading the tedious and tortured writings of Pat Durkin. Remember, he coined the term (when it comes to managing deer in WI, when in Doubt, keep shooting) He is not to be taken seriously by any stretch.

Look to Dr. Tony Grabski who was appointed to the same panel as my Father. Dr. Grabski is a protien scientist and deer hunter and land owner in the CWD infected zone hot spot. He makes Durkin look like a 1st grader in terms of knowledge of Prion disease. He has a keen grasp of the futility of humans trying to control that which they cannot.

 

Thank you writing this, I love how politics dictate what happens to anything even when the science behind it says opposite.

 

Thank you so much for writing this. Oh and I strongly dislike Durkin

 

Science is based on interpretation and opinion. Hence Global Warming.

 

No one has eradicated CWD or Scrapies in sheep or CJD in humans. Its been around since the dawn of time. Its naturally occurring and needs nothing for it to show up except an animal with a brain. You cant kill it because its not alive.

Killing all the deer to save all the deer is not the answer when even deer are not a vector. The soil in tire treads spread across the state or country is all that is needed (and a bit of bad luck) for it to spread or an infected animal to be transported and its waste and scrap improperly disposed of in the wild.

Durkin complains (that is what he is paid to do) that we are not doing enough or more but does not offer solutions, only partisan blame. If states that have had CWD for several decades dont have the answer (and we know Durkin certainly does not) for him to write that opinion story to complain WI is not doing enough is just a meams for him to cash a paycheck for bashing the Governor and thats something he would gladly do for free.

 

Thanks Innovative for explaining it accurately in a way that posters here understand and grasp, it is not easy or popular here when you have counter points to an article or heaven forbid have an opinion that QDMA is not the foremost authority.

 

I dont know what position QDMA takes on CWD and it doesnt really matter. I will assume they are opposed to attracting and congregating deer with hunter supplied food for the purposes of advantaging the hunter in seeing and killing deer within a CWD infected zone if that food is placed there or poured out buy the hunter and they will cite disease transmission as their reason.

But if they grow the bait and call it "stewardship" or "Habitat work" those catch phrases have the ability cancel out the CWD prion like its a cure and suddenly hunters supplying food to deer to advantage them in attracting, congregating and pulling deer to their property to the advantage of the hunter is a good thing.

That would assume they are not aware that the infected soil they congregate the deer to is 700% more invective than the nose to nose contact they no doubt cite as their opposition to a bait pile but they overlook, years and years of attracting deer to a bait plot where those infected deer will shed prions into the environment via urine, feces, saliva, hair, etc and continue to do so year after year, building up more and more infective matter in the soil and the plants growing up through it.

We know for certain that if you place a beat or turnip on the ground near your stand and an infected deer eats a portion and the next deer that eats off it will surely get CWD but if you grow that beat or turnip in CWD infected soil and several deer eat off the same tuber poking out of the ground then CWD is not a concern. You need only walk along the field edge and say the words "Stewardship" and "Habitat" and you can halt CWD in its tracks.

If only we could weaponize that power, CWD would be cured.