CWD and butchering

[Elk Bugler]

First post here, no expert or anything just a Gen Z hunter, I know a rarity nowadays. Anyway I have some questions for my elders about how you butcher deer. I've butchered 4 deer in my lifetime and when I first started I wasn't too educated on CWD, high risk parts (brain, spinal cord, lymph nodes, eyes) I do a good job butchering deer and live by "leave nothing for the vultures" pretty much everything I've learned has been from myself and YouTube. That being said I used to not pay too much attention to "high risk parts" I used to not know what lymph nodes and even were and assumed they were just fatty tissue so they would either be just part of the roast that got cooked or ground up with the rest of the quarter, or not even noticed at all (as gross as that sounds) and also I've butchered a deer that had a snapped spine (snapped when I was butchering it probably got roughed up a bit from the mile plus drag through rocky terrain and me also taking every bit of meat off the ribs and wherever else on the skeleton). So my question is for the DIY guys who don't go to a butcher do you take special precautions to take out all lymph nodes in all quarters also if your deer has a snapped spine that either got roughed up from dragging or from a spine shot (by no means am I advocating for a spine shot) do you cut around the meat by the spine. I've been reading about the CWD studies on monkeys and how some have gotten infected from these high risk tissues and I'm not trying to start a debate on if humans can or can't get CWD. I have read that 7500-15000 CWD infected animals are eaten a year, so it got me thinking if everyone or atlesst some people were like me and didn't go out of their way to avoid high risk parts and maybe even ended up eating lymph nodes or meat contaminated with spinal fluid well then maybe it strengthens the whole species barrier argument and provides us with some extra relief. Again not trying to start a debate more of just trying to start a discussion about how many of us hunters take CWD precautions when butchering our game and share some knowledge to other young hunters who were as clueless as I was.

 

[Hunting Wife]

Generally I get my animals tested and I personally won’t eat one that has tested positive. However, there’s no such thing as a “negative” test. I’m willing to take that risk, but don’t feel the need to tempt fate more than necessary. Too many unknowns, but everyone must weigh the risks for themselves.

I generally trim widely around anything that might have CNS fluid on it. But if it was shot in the spine, I would ordinarily trim around most of that anyway just to miss all the damaged stuff. I don’t cut spine or skull until I’ve removed all meat I’m keeping. Lymph nodes that are found with the major muscles are generally associated with fat and connective tissue so close trimming removes them and I remove as much fat as I can anyway.

Other than that, I use 10% bleach solution to clean equipment and wear gloves when field dressing, though I do that anyway because in my line of work I see lots of nasty critters with diseases I don’t want.

 

[mdeerjunkie]

Welcome. I generally stay away from the “high risk areas of the deer” If I test a deer and it is positive I won’t eat it, just out of precaution. But I generally don’t get it tested unless I have to. I will never shoot animal if it is sick or weak looking usually CWD infected. In my state, CPW used to compensate if the deer was positive but they stopped doing that.

 

[Northwoods]

Michael Osterholm has some interesting comments about CWD on this Joe Rogan podcast. Go to the 21 minute mark if you don’t want to listen to the entire podcast.

 

[3855WIN]

Cut the meat off the bone.

 

[Elk Bugler]

Michael Osterholm has some interesting comments about CWD on this Joe Rogan podcast. Go to the 21 minute mark if you don’t want to listen to the entire podcast.

Thanks, I've seen the whole podcast and it's very informative. The Steve Rinella podcast was really good too.