Cwd

[Hugger-4641]

I've had this conversation too many times recently and there is a lot of misinformation abounding about it. I'm going to state a couple facts about CWD and if you want to refute them, please cite your source.

1. CWD is not a virus or a bacteria. It is caused by a mutated protein called a Prion.
2. While this prion is not destroyed by cooking, it is NOT transmitted to humans.
Of course , I wouldn't risk eating meat from an animal that appeared sick because it could be something else. If it is an otherwise healthy animal, you are not at risk of getting CWD, even if the deer actually has it.

Again, if you refute what I'm saying here, please site a source and a documented case of a human getting CWD.

 

[earlthegoat2]

Well, I don’t disagree with your 2 points. I don’t think there exists documentation to disprove No 2 because it has never happened that anyone knows about. It gives me the heebie jeebies to think about it though.

What are you trying to accomplish with this post? You are only chipping at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how this can affect deer and hunting.

I have hunted in an active CWD area in MI for the last 4 years and am not that worried about it pertaining to myself personally. It does have proven effects on a deer herd though.

 

[Hugger-4641]

My point is directed towards dispelling the misconceptions of people of the same mind as some I've talked to personally in recent days.

People who have been told or think that:

1. They can get CWD by eating deer meat.
2. That they should shoot deer and leave them lay because of point #1 and that this helps by reducing deer population and thus reducing CWD.

I don't really care if you don't want to eat deer meat, leaves more for me. But I don't know of any reputable source that recommends arbitrarily killing deer just for the sake of reducing population.

 

[buck460XVR]

I've had this conversation too many times recently and there is a lot of misinformation abounding about it. I'm going to state a couple facts about CWD and if you want to refute them, please cite your source.

1. CWD is not a virus or a bacteria. It is caused by a mutated protein called a Prion.
2. While this prion is not destroyed by cooking, it is NOT transmitted to humans.
Of course , I wouldn't risk eating meat from an animal that appeared sick because it could be something else. If it is an otherwise healthy animal, you are not at risk of getting CWD, even if the deer actually has it.

Again, if you refute what I'm saying here, please site a source and a documented case of a human getting CWD.

Most of the confusion comes in areas where the disease has not become common......yet. Here in Wisconsin, we have had CWD for 20 years. Because of this, many states use our information gathered here to determine their own plans to fight the disease in their state.

While it is common knowledge that CWD is not yet zoonotic, there are studies that show, like Mad Cow disease, that it could mutate. https://vet.ucalgary.ca/news/chronic-wasting-disease-may-transmit-humans-research-finds

Well, I don’t disagree with your 2 points. I don’t think there exists documentation to disprove No 2 because it has never happened that anyone knows about. It gives me the heebie jeebies to think about it though.

What are you trying to accomplish with this post? You are only chipping at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how this can affect deer and hunting.

I have hunted in an active CWD area in MI for the last 4 years and am not that worried about it pertaining to myself personally. It does have proven effects on a deer herd though.

This is what most folks discover, after the initial hysteria. CWD can be devastating to a deer herd, as so far, it is always fatal, once symptoms develop.

My point is directed towards dispelling the misconceptions of people of the same mind as some I've talked to personally in recent days.

People who have been told or think that:

1. They can get CWD by eating deer meat.
2. That they should shoot deer and leave them lay because of point #1 and that this helps by reducing deer population and thus reducing CWD.

I don't really care if you don't want to eat deer meat, leaves more for me. But I don't know of any reputable source that recommends arbitrarily killing deer just for the sake of reducing population.

Is it your state DNR that is telling folks to leave deer lay? I doubt it since that just leaves the prions, if the deer is infected, to be exposed to other deer. Here, there are ways to dispose of deer, carcasses and remnants from processing that keeps that from occurring. CWD is a disease basically because of high density. Studies here prove the higher the density in an area, the higher the prevalence of CWD. So yes, the best and easiest(and only known) way to reduce the incidence of CWD, is to reduce the density. Prions are passed by contact with other animals and body fluids. Less contact, less chance of spread. This is why baiting and feeding in areas where CWD is found, is not recommended. The difficulty around here in reducing herd density, is because most of the prime deer areas are on private property and it's the land owners that generally dictate how many deer are shot.

Right now, folks have a larger threat of getting lead poisoning from eating venison that they do from CWD. God help us if that ever changes. But we still need to do all we can to reduce the amount of deer affected by the disease. The best way is to be informed. There are a ton of resources out there for correct information. Much of what is found on internet forums, by random posters, is incorrect or incomplete.

 

[Patocazador]

Mad cow disease wasn't transferrable to humans, they thought, but after several cases Britain banned the practice of grinding dead sheep into animal feed.

Prions are nothing to mess around with.

 

[CapnMac]

One of the issues here is that everything about prions is rife with debate.

Even the condition, transmissible spongiform encephalpothies has scientific debate. (That's largely due to uncertainty on just what causes prions; they are near impossible to make in a lab, and near as impossible to unmake as well--which means there's no scientific certainty that they are, in fact transmissible.)

TSE is a known thing, it's "scrapie" in sheep, BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, e.g. "mad cow disease") and Creutzfelt-Jakob disease in humans.

State wildlife organizations seem to be taking their cues from the historic agricultural reactions to scrapie and BSE--herd destruction (normally requiring creation). There's some evidence that plant life, especially grazing plants can spread TSE, but that's only in labratories and is very much a 51/49 sort of causation dataset.

Consuming "infected" animal tissue may, or may not be, a transmission vector. Neither is proven in either the field nor the lab.

It ought to be more common in predators and/or carrion eaters, if it were merely the flesh and/or fluids as vectors. Even more vexing, it's not absolute that grazing on fauna tainted by excretion will transmit, either. CWD is not much seen in farm-raised deer populations, but that may be due to the limited herd sizes, too.

So, sadly, we don't know enough to know what we don't know.

 

[1942farmall]

I've hunted central Wyoming for the last 32 years. It's pretty much decimated the herds in the area I hunt. Mule deer damn near cease to exist now. 20 years ago it wouldn't be uncommon to see 100+ mule deer in a day.
With that, I've eaten a ton of the meat over the years. None of my harvested animals ever appeared sick. I stopped buying general tags because I feel the deer simply can't sustain the additional pressure.
Maybe I'm wrong.
With that, other than my abnormally droopy ears and occasional drooling I appear to be uninfected.

 

[Scout21]

While CWD ostensibly can't be transmitted to humans I'd still be concerned about the improbable, yet very valid possibility of "species jump" as evidenced by the most recent pandemic.

I'd put prion diseases at the top of the list of afflictions I'm most afraid of, right next to rabies. Both are truly terrifying ailments, with the only known cure being death.

Near the entrance of a popular WMA a chest freezer was recently put out with a sign asking hunters to donate deer heads for testing/research by some government agency; I assume the CDC or our wildlife agency. I'm not sure if this is being done preemptively to learn more about CWD through using the heads for research, or if there is concern that CWD has already made it to our area.

 

[CapnMac]

I'd put prion diseases at the top of the list of afflictions I'm most afraid of,

Luckily CDC shows (for what that's worth) the incidence is 3.9/million in ages > 50, and only 1-2 / million overall.
CDC groups the human cases as "sporadic" and as "genetic"--hedging their bets on the two schools of thought on just why the proteins decide to fold all twisted.
The researchers don't even know if there is a threshold level of prions. The symptoms only seem to occur after enough "holes" occur in the neural tissue to "show."
We really have no idea what don't know about this.

But, at least in humans, we do kno you are more likely to suffer a significant lightning strike injury than CJD. It's is also a measure of how advanced our medical research is, that, other afflictions are near a thousand time more likely to afflict a person--and we have cure or treatments for all those.

I count a number of Wildlife & Fisheries professional among my A&M colleagues, and some veterinaries as well. There's some supposition in the animal husbandry field that some of this might be in explosive population growth in too small a genetic pool. Which has long been suspected of scrapie in sheep, where a certain amount of circular inbreeding for "best fleece" has always been a pressure on herds. Which would also explaine finding BSE in beef hers, but not dairy herds.

Maybe.
Perhaps.
Kinda.
Sorta.

 

[J-Bar]

Prions are proteins. Proteins are not absorbed across the gut wall. Proteins consumed as food are broken down (digested) into amino acids, and it is those individual amino acids that cross the gut wall and enter the bloodstream. Every protein in your body has been built inside your body from amino acids. If you don’t have a gene that manufactures prions, the only way to get prions is by injection, transfusion, absorption, etc. This is why surgical instruments used in suspected Creutzfeld-Jacob disease autopsies are discarded rather than re-used… to prevent cross contamination. (It’s also the reason you are wasting money buying shark cartilage in the health food store. The proteins in the cartilage are digested into amino acids before they can be absorbed into your body. You might as well eat eggs.). So, as far as I understand physiology, a hunter is more at risk by sloppy gutting techniques, which might result in accidental infection with CWD prions, than by eating contaminated venison. And I taught college level Physiology for 15 years.

All of which is to say that I would not mess with a deer that appears to be infected, but I don’t worry about eating venison from a good looking deer.

 

[buck460XVR]

This is why surgical instruments used in suspected Creutzfeld-Jacob disease autopsies are discarded rather than re-used… to prevent cross contamination

My state DNR recommends that the knives/saws/cutting boards used to process deer, only be used for processing deer, to prevent cross contamination since the temps needed to kill the prions are substantially higher than one can safely produce at home. They also recommend bleach to disinfect, but admit it probably won't do any good. They also recommend staying away from brain or other CNS tissue as that is where the prions accumulate. This includes deboning meat instead of cutting thru with a saw like for chops.

So, as far as I understand physiology, a hunter is more at risk by sloppy gutting techniques, which might result in accidental infection with CWD prions, than by eating contaminated venison.

This is true for now. Again, staying away from cutting any brain/CNS tissue and refraining from intentionally shooting a deer in that tissue. Also discarding any meat contaminated with brain/CNS tissue from bullet wounds.

All of which is to say that I would not mess with a deer that appears to be infected, but I don’t worry about eating venison from a good looking deer.

From what I understand, deer do not last long once they start to display symptoms. They also can live for a long time before displaying symptoms. From interviews with hunters that shot deer that tested positive for the disease, the state claims, none claimed the deer appeared sickly before being shot. Again, we are fortunate that as of now the disease cannot be passed on to humans. Since the prions can live for decades in the soil, it would be almost impossible to eradicate the disease from an area, once it becomes an active site.

 

[daniel craig]

I've had this conversation too many times recently and there is a lot of misinformation abounding about it. I'm going to state a couple facts about CWD and if you want to refute them, please cite your source.

1. CWD is not a virus or a bacteria. It is caused by a mutated protein called a Prion.
2. While this prion is not destroyed by cooking, it is NOT transmitted to humans.
Of course , I wouldn't risk eating meat from an animal that appeared sick because it could be something else. If it is an otherwise healthy animal, you are not at risk of getting CWD, even if the deer actually has it.

Again, if you refute what I'm saying here, please site a source and a documented case of a human getting CWD.

While I can't refute your second source I would like to point out that our knowledge of CWD and the time frame hasn't really lent itself to a long enough study to see whether it's transmissible to humans or not in my opinion.

Honestly though for me life's too short to care about this kind of thing anyway. If the deer looks healthy and I do a good job cutting it I'm going to eat the meat. If I get sick and die well screw it I get sick and die, nobody makes it out of here alive.

 

[Thomasss]

There was a hunter that passed away near Green Bay, Wisconsin about 25 years ago from Creutzfeld-Jacob disease. It was reported in the local paper, he liked to eat deer organs including eyes and brains. Maybe he liked to eat dog food from Germany. Funny, I can't seem to find any info on that now.
The DNR info I have says to de-bone venison. And cut out deer lymph nodes found in neck base, near the spleen and at the base of the legs near the body. They look kinda white-ish large jelly bean shapes. It is also stated not to consume major organs. I can't point to a source, but have read on the internet not to eat any meat from deer that exhibit signs of illness(even though it is illegal not to collect harvested game in Wisconsin...but we should donate our meat to the poor?). And we are not to use real deer urine attractants that may spread prions, but it is still sold without restriction in Wisconsin. And finally, if we can't find a butcher shop to process our deer, (many in my area have closed in recent years), we should bone out the animal and leave the body skeleton and spine on the property where it was shot, (maybe for wolf, cougar, coyote or eagle food), because who knows what land fill those bones may end up in spreading possible prions.

 

[alsaqr]

In Britain meal made from cattle bones was included in the food of young calves.

Two distant relatives of mine have died from Creutzfeld-Jacob disease.

 

[daniel craig]

There was a hunter that passed away near Green Bay, Wisconsin about 25 years ago from Creutzfeld-Jacob disease. It was reported in the local paper, he liked to eat deer organs including eyes and brains. Maybe he liked to eat dog food from Germany. Funny, I can't seem to find any info on that now.
The DNR info I have says to de-bone venison. And cut out deer lymph nodes found in neck base, near the spleen and at the base of the legs near the body. They look kinda white-ish large jelly bean shapes. It is also stated not to consume major organs. I can't point to a source, but have read on the internet not to eat any meat from deer that exhibit signs of illness(even though it is illegal not to collect harvested game in Wisconsin...but we should donate our meat to the poor?). And we are not to use real deer urine attractants that may spread prions, but it is still sold without restriction in Wisconsin. And finally, if we can't find a butcher shop to process our deer, (many in my area have closed in recent years), we should bone out the animal and leave the body skeleton and spine on the property where it was shot, (maybe for wolf, cougar, coyote or eagle food), because who knows what land fill those bones may end up in spreading possible prions.

Brains are dangerous to eat for a lot of reasons. That's pretty well known. Don't eat nervous system tissues like spinal cord and brain.

 

[buck460XVR]

Brains are dangerous to eat for a lot of reasons. That's pretty well known. Don't eat nervous system tissues like spinal cord and brain.

I grew up eating pig brains on a fairly regular basis. Not only were they cheap, my dad loved them. Like eating grey scrambled eggs. Last time I checked, there were still no alerts about eating pig brains, altho there is a disease that is transmitted by those that harvest them in slaughterhouses......http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/02/28/medical.mystery/index.html

 

[wombat13]

The other disease that is likely influencing recommendations is kuru - the TSE disease among one of the cannibal tribes of Papua New Guinea. IIRC they specifically consumed the brain of the deceased. Lucky for me, I have no interest in eating brain. I'm happy to stick with tenderloin, backstrap, etc.

 

[WisBorn]

Interesting thread everyone. @buck460XVR thank you for your comments about our state.
I have one thing to add. If your state offers a CWD testing program please participate in it. In Wisconsin they set up drop off points. You filled out a simple form and drop off the head. After about 2 weeks you get the results. The information regarding CWD is valuable in determining the amount of CWD that is in area.

 

[earlthegoat2]

Interesting thread everyone. @buck460XVR thank you for your comments about our state.
I have one thing to add. If your state offers a CWD testing program please participate in it. In Wisconsin they set up drop off points. You filled out a simple form and drop off the head. After about 2 weeks you get the results. The information regarding CWD is valuable in determining the amount of CWD that is in area.

In MI it has gotten even simpler IMO. They want you to harvest the lymph nodes from the neck. I didnt even watch a video on it, just followed written instructions and I was able to do it. It involved cutting the neck open. Then you can actually mail them in with a special packet picked up at an Dept of Ag office. Pretty neat but it will cause some grief for your taxidermist if you go that route.

 

[WisBorn]

In MI it has gotten even simpler IMO. They want you to harvest the lymph nodes from the neck. I didnt even watch a video on it, just followed written instructions and I was able to do it. It involved cutting the neck open. Then you can actually mail them in with a special packet picked up at an Dept of Ag office. Pretty neat but it will cause some grief for your taxidermist if you go that route.

I see a few taxidermist in Wisconsin are participating in the drop off program as drop off sights. Maybe they are sending in a sample after they remove the cape from heads they are going to mount?,

 

[daniel craig]

I grew up eating pig brains on a fairly regular basis. Not only were they cheap, my dad loved them. Like eating grey scrambled eggs. Last time I checked, there were still no alerts about eating pig brains, altho there is a disease that is transmitted by those that harvest them in slaughterhouses......http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/02/28/medical.mystery/index.html

Prion largely "inhabits" the brain and spinal tissue.

 

[JeffG]

I had a hard time getting venison through the door at home before, because my wife had a bad experience with somebody who didn't know how to care for meat properly.(Hair and rancid tallow) With CWD, some of the misinformation, lack of information, and folklore that has sprung up surrounding CWD, we won't be eating any, I'll donate it.

 

[buck460XVR]

Prion largely "inhabits" the brain and spinal tissue.

.....kinda why I stated in a previous post,

Again, staying away from cutting any brain/CNS tissue and refraining from intentionally shooting a deer in that tissue. Also discarding any meat contaminated with brain/CNS tissue from bullet wounds.

 

[daniel craig]

.....kinda why I stated in a previous post,

Whoops. I guess I either didn't register that when I read it or took your meaning differently, my apologies.

 

[buck460XVR]

Whoops. I guess I either didn't register that when I read it or took your meaning differently, my apologies.

Not a problem.

This is a prime example of some of the confusion about CWD. Folks getting most of their info on the internet. Some of the info is not correct, some is easy to misinterpret, and some is hard to relate to. When CWD was first discovered here in Wisconsin there was mass hysteria and folks repeating and embellishing even the wildest of claims about it. Then as it died off, folks kinda forget it's even out there. My issue is with "captive deer farms" and the high incidence of CWD there. The whole demand for "captive" deer is all about deer hunting, yet they are the biggest threat to wild deer populations. Not far from where I hunt, a so called "deer farm" had to be "depopulated" because of recurring CWD. How this does not get transferred to wild deer at some point is hard to believe.

https://www.wqow.com/news/wisconsin...cle_9104e6f0-909b-5f50-b844-10ea18b4c94b.html