CWD Positive

[Hunting Wife]

So do they have any idea how long it’s been in MT?

I’m guessing from the prevalence that we’ve actually had it for a while and it was undetected.

No way to say exactly how long, but looking at how things went over the last decade you could make a guess. Saskatchewan detected a 25% prevalence in mule deer last fall, and given all the migration that occurs across the border, I think it’s safe to say it did not just get here last year. Funding for surveillance was cut in 2012, and it was not present at high enough prevalence to be detected then. I think if the level of surveillance from 2012 could have been continued, CWD may have been detectable within a couple of years. I’ll be interested to see what the prevalence ends up being- not positive how they’ve set up their sampling design.

Testing in Wyoming had more cases much closer to the border back in 2012 than what was being found in Saskatchewan at the time. My gut says there might be quite a few positives in SE MT when surveillance moves down there next fall.

Just heard at least one new detection in Divide County, ND recently as well.

 

[timmy]

My guess is it has been around for quite some time and mtfwp is going to use it to justify their current management and get rid of limited entry mule deer tags in every unit just as they are going to do in carbon county. IMO they should get out of the way of Mother Nature but maybe we should manage something we know nothing about. They will find it throughout the state as we are surrounded by it.

 

[3855WIN]

Did you cut the spine or skull? The knife or saw could have CWD on it.

 

[antlerradar]

My guess is it has been around for quite some time and mtfwp is going to use it to justify their current management and get rid of limited entry mule deer tags in every unit just as they are going to do in carbon county. IMO they should get out of the way of Mother Nature but maybe we should manage something we know nothing about. They will find it throughout the state as we are surrounded by it.

I was thinking the same thing.
All that will happen is the public will continue to get hammered and the private will get more and more commercialized by hunters looking for better quality hunting.

 

[88man]

CWD is really scary and has to be one of the reasons of Mule Deer decline. Think of the deer that are sick that the coyotes and cats get.

 

[Godsstepbrother]

it takes a lot of exposure for it to jump to humans. Still sucks, but i wouldn't fret, we are nowhere near yet.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

it takes a lot of exposure for it to jump to humans. Still sucks, but i wouldn't fret, we are nowhere near yet.

Statistically? Sure it will take a lot of people being exposed to CWD before we see individuals exhibiting variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, but it's quite possible for someone to develop the disease after coming in contact with a very small amount of the prions.

 

[spinal tap]

Statistically? Sure it will take a lot of people being exposed to CWD before we see individuals exhibiting variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, but it's quite possible for someone to develop the disease after coming in contact with a very small amount of the prions.

I'm not a CWD expert, so perhaps someone who is will chime in, but I don't believe that's necessarily true. I believe what is known is that some monkeys developed the disease after prolonged exposure as described in the article linked below. I agree that the risk of transmission is enough to avoid eating CWD-positive meat, but I wouldn't want anyone to be frightened by the idea of "coming in contact with a very small amount of the prions." However, I appreciate where you're coming from and I am truly sorry for the OP whose meat tested positive. What a shame. I pray for a solution to CWD.

https://www.jsonline.com/story/spor...-concerns-human-susceptibility-cwd/430046001/

 

[ImBillT]

^^^ if you read that article, you’ll find that the exposure was equivalent to one 7oz steak per month. Kinda scary really. It seems to have a silent incubation period of almost ten years in the monkeys. Could be longer in humans. In deer it can come on suddenly or take years to develope based on degree of exposure. I won’t be eating any meat that comes back positive.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

I'm not a CWD expert, so perhaps someone who is will chime in, but I don't believe that's necessarily true. I believe what is known is that some monkeys developed the disease after prolonged exposure as described in the article linked below. I agree that the risk of transmission is enough to avoid eating CWD-positive meat, but I wouldn't want anyone to be frightened by the idea of "coming in contact with a very small amount of the prions." However, I appreciate where you're coming from and I am truly sorry for the OP whose meat tested positive. What a shame. I pray for a solution to CWD.

https://www.jsonline.com/story/spor...-concerns-human-susceptibility-cwd/430046001/

We don't really have an understanding of prion diseases and how the spread between species and/or to humans. We don't know how "virulent", although that is a incorrect usage of the word, prion diseases and how many prions you have to be exposed to in order to be affected. However look at a similar prion disease Kuru, individuals in New Guinea were practicing cannibalism and consuming humans brains as part of a funeral ritual, women and children were the ones most likely to contract the disease as they were eating the brains. Given the fact that, human brains were not a regular staple of their diet but something consumed sporadically as part of a ritual there is at least circumstantial evidence that you don't need chronic, heavy exposure to a prion disease to contract it.

My point was that yes, while highly highly unlikely the disease would jump species and that the meat of the deer alone would cause you to develop a prion disease, we do not have evidence that one deer does not have enough priors present to infect someone, i.e. you don't necessarily have to be a lifetime consumer of CWD deer to be at risk... could be just one deer.

Something to think about it can take as long as 30 years for people to show signs of Kuru, CWD has only be prevalent since 1990...

 

[Hunting Wife]

There are cases every few years of people back east contracting vCJD from eating squirrel brains. There have been 230-something cases of vCJD in people that consumed BSE-positive beef. It is certainly not without precedent for prion diseases to jump from other species to humans. Is it rare? Yes. Does the fact that CWD hasn’t yet been observed to infect a person mean it can’t happen? Not necessarily. Does anyone know what type of dose it takes to transmit prion disease to a human? No. We can’t exactly do human dosing experiments to learn this stuff, after all. All we can do is make inferences based on actually acquired cases (not ideal because it’s impossible to know for certain when/where/how transmission occurred), or experiments conducted on animal models.

How many billions of people eat beef, and there have only been 230 cases of mad cow infecting people. Given that only a small fraction of that number of people consume venison from affected areas, I would say the absence of known cases of CWD transmission means very little at this point.

All people can do is look at the facts that are known and decide for themselves what level of risk they are comfortable with.

 

[Realwarrior]

You are correct, very rare but has happened, it's called 'new variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease' contracted from a cow with bovine spongiform encephalopathy
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/creutzfeldt-jakob-disease-cjd/

Folks contracted CFJD in Appalachia that was traced back to eating squirrel brains, which was considered a delicacy. It' a shame, but I wouldn't eat it either.

What she said above lol

 

[scubohuntr]

Exactly the reason I won't be testing any of mine. I won't eat deer that look sick, I don't cut bone at all (especially spine or braincase) when butchering, and I don't eat tonsils, eyeballs, nervous systems, or thyroid glands. Just meat. I probably don't have thirty years left anyway, so I don't worry too much about it. That said, I doubt I could really enjoy eating one I knew was CWD-positive, so no testing for me. Ditto for trichinella in bears.

A big thank you to the deer farmers, for sure.