Hey Nick, if you see her again we probably need to see about getting a sample. I'll shoot you a PM with details on that.
It was very user friendly and I found it to be very informative. I think it would be helpful to you guys as it provides a plethora of information from the people in the field.
Still no cases in humans. There are hunters routinely eating deer from CWD zones without testing them, including zones with 50% prevalence rates. There was a big group that was served a CWD positive deer (test results came back after the deer was eaten) at a wild game dinner about 20 years ago. They've been following a bunch of those people ever since and still no signs of disease.
Left unchecked and unmanaged, CWD is worse in the long run. EHD runs in cycles because deer that get it and don't die develop immunity. With CWD there is no immunity, deer with CWD will ultimately die from it if not killed by a hunter or predator first. You often hear EHD kills more deer each year which is true for the time being. It will not stay that way because CWD doesn't cycle, it constantly but slowly grows. There are parts of West Virginia and Arkansas where CWD is killing as many deer as hunters. What many people don't understand is that it takes decades for CWD to reach that point in a given area.
There are a couple of ways, but they aren't super-reliable yet. The most common live animal test uses rectal lining, so you have to drug the deer, open the rear end with a speculum, and clip out a little portion of the rectal lining. That can pick up some deer that are positive, but if they were recently infected then it won't show up yet.
There's a lot we still need to learn about transmission, but direct deer to deer contact appears to be more efficient. With that said there have been several studies that show that there is a lot more nose to nose contact at feeders or bait sites when compared to deer using food plots or random observations. No one can tell the degree to which putting out bait increases transmission rates, but it's a safe assumption that it doesn't help the situation. We obviously can't control all the behaviors that deer have that can transmit CWD, but we do have control over our own actions that may help it spread faster. Here is our current recommendation from our CWD information website:I'm part of the peanut gallery as I don't have a biology degree as someone pointed out to another poster that gave his opinion earlier in this thread. What I do have is 45 years of field observations.
Something my son and I have noticed since we started gravity feeding about 6 years ago with protein is how much more deer prefer white acorns than they do corn or protein pellets. It is very obvious as our feed bill plummeted when the acorns started falling. Our feed started lasting 2.5 times longer then normal. No, that's not hyperbole as we have the local feed supplier fill our feeders since we are in Fl and can't get up enough to do it. We know almost to the day how long it takes to empty a 300ib feeder without acorns falling. With acorns falling it will last 2.5 times longer. I have a double white oak 40yds to the left of my main (#1) feeder and this year it was dropping heavy. I put a spartan on it. Keep in mind I had a spartan 40yds away at the feeder. It wasn't even remotely close the number of pics between the 2. As a mater of fact, there was a 3 week period that I would get pics of the same groups of deer eating multiple times a day under the white oak and they never once jumped the fence and ate protein and corn from the feeder. We mix 3 bags of corn with 3 bags of protein to help keep the cost down. When I sat my stand I would watch it play out and the deer at the oak tree licked, kicked and mingled just like they do at the feeder. I will even go further and say they do it even more at the tree as it's open around the tree and multiple groups will hang out at the same time especially right at dark. At the feeder there are never more then 3 or 4 deer eating because they run the other deer off. Especially the moma does. This is not something random but rather always the case all six years we have had the feeders and acorns are falling.
With all of that said, I'm not trying to prove a point or say feeding is fine, I'm just telling you what I witness first hand and my cameras tell me. And what that is is, a white acorn tree, dropping fresh white acorns, gathers deer as much, if not considerably more then any feeder. At least on my land.
To be clear again, in case some thinks I'm advocating feeders don't spread cwd, I'm not, and I don't have the answers, just providing my observations on my land. I also realize this is just one piece out of many pieces of the cwd puzzle.
Call first. We may not authorize killing the deer if it's not a population threat like deer warts. We've got people all across the state, but not near the same coverage as law enforcement. Weekends are tougher because the on call person could be several counties away, but that's less of an issue when the weather is cooler and the samples will stay good for a couple of days. For CWD testing collect lymph nodes from where the head meets the neck, so when we authorize killing one we instruct to avoid head or upper neck shots.
Will you be quiet!! Not your thread. Let Charlie work. You don’t know anything. Quit googling. You comment like you know which we all know is not a fact.
Good question. There is a connection. What is GA doing Charlie?
Here we go. The two Google masters. This pertains to us “deer hunters”. You and @basshappy need to sit back and hush. Let Charlie do his thing.
