https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/oklahoma-cwd-genetic-improvement-law/

Right or wrong, Oklahoma is taking some action.

That’s really jumping the gun. If you read that article it sounds like politicians heavily involved in the deer breeding industry are simply looking at a different clientele to sell deer too that they can’t sell elsewhere. Hey guys, we can justify selling and releasing CWD resistant deer to landowners and get a bill passed to legally allow us to do so. Politics in wildlife management is absolutely disgusting.

Oh it definitely has the air of politics to it. Now all they need is a tax funded program to supply the animals to low fence landowners at no cost. That would complete the circle.

Genotype breading is receiving a lot of interest from the deer breeders. If it works it could combat the spread of CWD, but I am not sure we know yet if it will work.

One thing about it Breeders are spending their own money to see if it works. If CWD will ever make the human jump it will be at a deer farm, all the close contact, mowing pens, and handling deer provides a lot of exposure.

Yep and I’m certainly not against that research and seeing where it leads at all. I just think this particular case wreaks of politics. Why release deer in a wild herd that’s not suffering from severe affects of the disease? I just don’t think it’s time for that yet.

Just because we can does not mean that we should. Im afraid genetic modifications could have big unforeseen issues in the future. Im with Matt on this one. Needs to studied and tested in pens for decades before you start screwing around with native populations.

The politicians are heavily involved in this program. I met on of the guys that came up with this program in Illinois during the National Deer Breeders show in March. The guy had lots of money invested into this line of breeding to get his farm raised deer immune to CWD. Once he "proved" it, the politicians saw $$$$ (and potential actual help) and they jumped on board.

I'm curious to see where this actually leads.....

My problem with the whole thing is that CWD doesn't kill deer nearly as often as EHD but the government doesn't seem to have any concern about that. Their excuse is that CWD is contagious and EHD isn't but EHD is still more deadly to them. Plus the government will through money at CWD.