So how are yall going to feel when it is found here? I wonder how long prions exist in the soil? When they take out the herd in a 10 mile circle of positive ID I guess that makes sense but not if prions just stay dormant in soil / environment?
We know the prions stay in the soil at least 30+ years based on the the first case in CO. The facility was depoped, cleansed and deer were returned a little over 30 years later and began contracting CWD.
I don’t believe states are still doing the “try to eradicate deer” so it doesn’t spread. It simply isn’t affordable. Yearning buck dispersal accounts for its natural spread, so it should be relatively slow. However, as deer (live and dead) are moved from place to place the spread happens faster.
Some out there act as though EHD is a bigger problem than CWD. Here in AL EHD is not 100% fatal, far from it but CWD is. EHD does kill lots of deer in the Midwest when it rolls through but it isn’t something they deal with on an annual basis. The populations recover with time. With CWD most evidence shows that with time prevalence rates increase and so does the area impacted. This can be a pretty slow process but looking at AR, their prevalence rate and hot area has increased pretty dang fast.
