And another CWD case in MS

Another young deer, this is case #4 Marshall County, MS CWD positive

Not good at all.....

But, some interesting information coming out lately on transmission.
Hopefully, there will be some ground gained back soon against this disease. There are a lot of mighty smart people working on it and the efforts to understand it better seem to be getting much more attention.

I understand the intent of the new law about bringing cervid carcasses and parts into Alabama from other states. It's an effort being put forth to try to keep CWD out of our state.

How are we going to control wild, free ranging deer from moving back and forth across state lines? Alabama has 4 other states that we share state lines with. CWD is found in one of those states so far. There is no way possible to stop free ranging deer from moving back and forth across these state lines.

Sooner or later it's going to be discovered in Alabama. It very well could already be here.

I think it’s been here (ms), but we’ve just never tested for it so heavily, as we are now. It is most likely present there(al), too, and will be found if (when) y’all start testing more heavily.

Dang seems to popping up everywhere there.

Worst part is the 3 counties it has been found in don't even border each other. It's like throwing darts at a map.

Exactly what I was thinking. Can't make sense out of it.

Probably getting it from high fenced outfits would be my guess. That would explain the odd distribution.

They are going to screw us we will have it here in no time. This is what having your head in the sand and not having rules and people not following rules looks like.

Does Alabama have a program set up to test deer from processors, hunting clubs and taxidermist? How are they selecting test animals?

Agreed, but the random jumps all over the nation has biologists stumped. Of course there is the component of people driving captive infected deer all over the country but what if that ain't it?

timbercruiser

Read toward the bottom regarding surveillance.


https://www.outdooralabama.com/wildlife-related-diseases/chronic-wasting-disease

Mississippi, like Alabama, has tested deer for CWD for more than 15 years if I recall correctly. The number of deer tested each year varied, depending on available money, but it's not like they've only tested for a couple of years.

If CWD isn't in Alabama it will be at some point. Just a matter of time.

The sky won't fall, deer hunting won't end, life will go on just like it does in Wisconsin and Minnesota and Arkansas and the other two dozen states or provinces with it. We'll just deal with things a little differently. I just hope research is being done into some other segments, such as whether avian or canine predators can spread the prions in scat and whether there's any connection between CWD and humans.

The thing that truly baffles me is the number of people who ask things like "What is this, is it like EHD?" or "What does the state plan to do about this?" or other questions that have been answered ad nauseum. They aren't paying attention, don't read or listen, and don't care about educating themselves. I'm don't understand how some people can be that truly ignorant about something that has been discussed here for more than 10 years, easily and known in the deer world for much longer.

The shotgun distribution may imply it has been present there for some time and gone undetected. It doesn’t necessarily mean breeders had anything to do with it. Bringing infected deer parts in from OOS concerns me more. Those parts are disposed of in the environment and no telling how often it has happened over the years.

Once again, Clem calls it right, I agree with you 100% baffling that tons of people have no idea what it is or care to educate themselves.

Where do carcasses go once a commercial processor is done with them? I know some will or may sell hides, but what about the majority of the carcasses including head-spine-neuro and everything else?

Local trash dump? Tallow rendering? Dumped out on someone's Back 40?

You're right, nobody can control wild animals from crossing state lines. Wild deer don't often travel that far. That's why CWD typically doesn't spread very fast. It's reliant on deer movement patterns. Typically "long range" deer movement occurs during the rut and when sub-adult males begin to disperse and find new home ranges. Overall deer home ranges aren't huge. Usually a few hundred acres sometimes up to a few miles but that's not the norm.

According to the mentality of some on here deer know where property lines are so we should just put up some signs along the border with MS so they will know not to cross it.

No different than your neighbor blasting 55 does per year.... it should not have any impact on us at all if we would just put some signs up.

I am stumped, on the distribution and a appearance of cases. It would be interesting to look at the statistics from each county from past tests and see what confidence interval could be established relating to prevalence rates based on historical testing. I understand the sample numbers vary with funding but it still might provide some insight, as that type analysis could be used to determine that if it was in Mississippi before and went undetected how rare it had to be to resolve the statistics. I.e. if they tested ~300 deer from an area you can establish with 99% confidence that the prevalence rate was less than 1%. There is a transmission vector somewhere that isn't understood or hasn't been addressed before. Maybe the state guys are correct in cracking down on the bone component of out of state deer? The prions are extremely hardy so I can see how if you bring an unprocessed infected animal in from a CWD zone and then discard the remains after processing it could cause it to spread. However by the same token if it can in fact remain in the soil for long periods then is it being moved by log trucks and atvs and pickups?

Wanna see some eyes pop out and pants get in a twist, ask some folks about any correlation between elk relocations and CWD.

there are now 21 test check-in locations around the state and all are asked to bring heads for testing and all feeding laws have been suspended, so it will probably take at least this year to get usable data (of course, not all will comply). the routine is to keep the head cool or frozen, if you don’t take it directly from the skinning shed to the check station, debone meat and process, then wait for test results before consumption. haven’t heard about incinerating carcasses, but if not already happening it will, soon...otherwise it is digging an, at least, 8 foot hole to discard and bury the carcass in.

this is prior to the Marshall Co case and statewide feedin ban
https://www.mdwfp.com/media/256057/18-cwd-regs-for-hunting-season-30-single-pages.pdf

Elk in high fences all around me. Have had them on my property several times from fences being downed.

I have a question. Not sure if it has been addressed or not. Since just about the entire state feeds deer corn at some point during the year, and since plants can take up the CWD protein, could the corn we feed be giving the deer CWD if the corn comes from a state and area that has the disease in the ground?

slippin, read the last two paragraphs of the link below.

https://www.agweb.com/article/chronic-wasting-disease-a-time-bomb-for-agriculture-naa-chris-bennett/

Good article. Thanks

Well you just opened a can of worms... Makes sense. The prion can be passed through urine or feces and is small enough for cellular uptake in plants, so a CWD positive deer eating and defecating in a corn field would presumably be able to transmit to the plant. I wonder if anyone has ever tested that to see if it holds in the stalk, leaf, or grain only, or if its present throughout the entire plant.

Wait, wait. You're talking about taking on Big Ag along with the deer corn/feeding industry over a disease they wouldn't care about. They've already begun banning urine even though I've yet to see a confirmed, legit, bonafide anything that says prions defintely 100 percent can be passed through urine and feces. If that confirmed research is available I'd like to see that.

The urine bans have been as a "preventative" measure. Banning corn or finding out that corn (or beans) might transmit CWD prions would merely cause billion-dollar Big Ag to shrug and say "Tough chit, my corn is more valuable than deer."

But it's definitely an interesting question.

the deer urine ban was more than likely a lobby effort by synthetic urine manufacturers kinda like the trophy rock. CWD was a convenient explanation of the decision.

It was not. The "synthetic urine manufacturers" were selling natural urine as well, from big companies to small.

so we wont allow urine but will allow a butchered up quartered whole deer from another state as long as the spinal cord and brain matter are removed? if cwd can pass thru urine, saliva, blood etc as some claim why cherry pick and ban one thing and not another? what happens when you wash out the cooler that CWD butchered up deer was in and dump it outside did CWD just get introduced into the ecosystem? about 90% of the stuff they say about CWD is contradictory and I don't think anyone really knows what they are talking about you can't even test for it you can only see the damage caused by it inthe brain tissue how do we know it's not in every part ofthe deer

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2654070/

That's not entirely accurate...

You can test for it, however those test's aren't 100% fool proof yet. They miss early positives, or those still in the incubation period. If they can figure that out, there'll be a lot of happy breeders. Probably still a long time coming IMO.

Dunno.


I merely answered your allegation that "synthetic urine manufacturers" got the natural urine bans put into effect. They did not. They were selling natural urine as well, with a lot of hunters who use deer urine choosing "the real stuff" over synthetic.

Thank you.

Research has shown it to reside in low to high levels in the following: brain/nervous tissue, skeletal system, heart, kidney, and lymph nodes/system.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3783112/

Thanks again.

Hey Nighthunter, what about saliva?

A huge body of evidence suggests that CWD can be efficiently transmitted horizontally within and between cervid species,12 which may be the reason for geographical spread and increase in case numbers. Horizontal transmission is explained by the rather unusual peripheral distribution of prions in CWD affected animals and the high susceptibility to the disease by oral infection.13,14 Unlike in most other prion diseases, CWD prions can be found in a wide variety of tissues, such as skeletal and cardiac muscle15,16 or kidney,17 in addition to the lymphoreticular system and blood.18 Furthermore, they are shed in significant amounts in saliva,18,19 urine19 or feces,20 which enables oral infection of animals by foraging on contaminated pastures. In addition, it has been demonstrated that prions can persist in soil21 and that water in endemic areas can contain CWD-associated PrPSc 22.

This is in the NCBI link that Nighthunter posted above.

Bodily fluids too, I just didn't repeat that since it was in the initial linked article.

Go down to table 1 on the first linked study

That stinks.....

I've seen this type information out there before. My question is why are prions more readily found in saliva than in urine. Is there something in the body chemistry that potentially filters or degrades a prion? There may be a simple explanation to you vet's or medical professionals...

Kidneys filter protein out of urine. Saliva uses proteins to begin the digestive process. Since prions are misshapen proteins, it makes sense that they would be found in higher concentrations in saliva vs urine.

See, just had to have someone say it... Makes perfect sense. Especially since prions are found in kidney tissue. Just hadn't thought it through