Montana extends season (whitetail) for CWD

[Irrelevant]

Yep! Reducing population and reducing buck numbers.

The golden-boy units in Colorado for this are like 7, 8, 9, 191 where prevalence has decreased since the early 2000's.

So we kill a bunch of deer or CWD kills a bunch the deer... what exactly is the difference? Either way, we still have CWD and fewer deer.

As far as I'm aware CWD has not decimated any free ranging herds, at least not any more than the proposed density reductions that are meant to combat CWD.

I have yet to read anything, including your paper or anything on cwd-info.org, that compels me to believe any particular management strategy is better than another. Furthermore that paper was specific to mule deer and explicitly says this may not be true for whitetail.

The get while the gettin's good(ish), because it will get worse, seems to be the front runner for management plans

 

[tjones]

That is interesting as well. I'm hoping to see some results from the new antler restriction tag in that unit. The hope is that there can still be a trophy unit in the midst of CWD. This measure may be one way to allow the bigger bucks to survive while thinning out populations.

Do populations need thinned out? The closet CWD found near HD270 was in the Ruby, right?

 

[The Hedgehog]

Would reducing human population would be an effective way to control Covid-19?

 

[timmy]

I’m not sure there has been any success stories of shooting it out of the herd. The “science” behind it suggests pounding the mature bucks and keeping populations low. Montana does a pretty good job of that and yet here we are. Who cares at this point might as well make a 12 month season with no bag limits. I went down a rabbit hole and read the 60 plus page Montana cwd management plan and they will use cwd to justify their current crappy management.

 

[d-edward]

I know I'm risking derailing a good redneck bitch session by involving science, but are there other studies in other areas? Is there a general consensus among researchers?

First of all, I resemble that remark.

Second, while the initial intent of the management hunt may have been rooted in science, that train left the track when we stopped short of mandatory collection. Even if the additional samples would have only been confirmation bias - why organize a hunt you don’t know the efficacy of post-implementation?

For the same reasons you’re asking for preexisting research to help support this approach from FWP, I would expect the additional, mandatory sample collection to better identify what the prevalence is and where, and if the continuity of data between general season and this hunt tells us anything else about what FWP’s next move should have been. This is a missed opportunity to analyze the problem outside of the craziness of general season.

 

[Art Vandeley]

Montana on the upswing ?

 

[Hunting Wife]

For those who need bullet points:

https://wgfd.wyo.gov/WGFD/media/content/PDF/Get%20Involved/CWD_WG_Lessons_Presentation.pdf

The BMPs for CWD management. These were not arrived at lightly...extensive review of data went into their development.

https://wafwa.org/wpdm-package/recommendations-for-adaptive-management-of-chronic-wasting-disease-in-the-west/?wpdmdl=5531&refresh=5fd95429ee3041608078377

I’m not sure there has been any success stories of shooting it out of the herd.

Yes, there has. New York is the only state with enough balls to hit it early and hit it hard. They’ve had no further detections. Outside of very specific situations with discrete foci of infection like the one in the OP proposal, it’s too late for this strategy in most places. That train left the station while everyone was arguing about what to do.

There are dozens of examples, however, of states doing nothing and watching prevalences skyrocket and now, populations decline. I’ve posted links to all of these before, and I’m not inclined to dig them up to post again. Use the search function if you actually want to read the literature.

So we kill a bunch of deer or CWD kills a bunch the deer... what exactly is the difference? Either way, we still have CWD and fewer deer.

As far as I'm aware CWD has not decimated any free ranging herds, at least not any more than the proposed density reductions that are meant to combat CWD.

I have yet to read anything, including your paper or anything on cwd-info.org, that compels me to believe any particular management strategy is better than another. Furthermore that paper was specific to mule deer and explicitly says this may not be true for whitetail.

The get while the gettin's good(ish), because it will get worse, seems to be the front runner for management plans

Decimate? By what measure? Several studies in multiple states regarding elk, white tails and mule deer demonstrating 10-20% annual declines in some populations at prevalences over ~20%, and models predicting disturbingly high probability of herds failing to persist at all within a few more decades. Links have been posted before. The difference is you either contain the disease and maintain smaller areas of environmental contamination, reduce prevalence and prolong the time scale your population will persist and give yourself time to maybe learn better ways to manage/treat, or just watch it burn.

The main gripe I have about the proposal is not making testing required. If you’re going to do the management, you better be gathering the data to evaluate it.

 

[mtmuley]

Tough to read this thread. Even tougher is there are hundreds of guys that will head out to "help". Yep, screwed. mtmuley

 

[Deleted member 16014]

I know I'm risking derailing a good redneck bitch session by involving science, but are there other studies in other areas? Is there a general consensus among researchers?

So you won’t take 10 minutes to read the article, but you’ll use it to demean a lot of concerned and very experienced MT deer hunters? Classy

 

[sacountry]

How this debacle cannot be mandatory check in with sampling is absolutely baffling. I don’t care how many ranches are asking for help. Without mandatory sampling the whole premise is a joke.

Totally agree

 

[RobG]

So you won’t take 10 minutes to read the article, but you’ll use it to demean a lot of concerned and very experienced MT deer hunters? Classy

OK. I went too far with my comments. Sorry about that.

 

[RobG]

It's automatically a 'redneck bitchfest' if you raise any concerns and don't keep believing the piss on your back is rain, got it.

*@#@ this place.

@Randy11 - I was half joking because very few have really dove in to understand the logic. But I should have said nothing. Sorry about that Randy.

 

[RobG]

First of all, I resemble that remark.

Second, while the initial intent of the management hunt may have been rooted in science, that train left the track when we stopped short of mandatory collection. Even if the additional samples would have only been confirmation bias - why organize a hunt you don’t know the efficacy of post-implementation?

For the same reasons you’re asking for preexisting research to help support this approach from FWP, I would expect the additional, mandatory sample collection to better identify what the prevalence is and where, and if the continuity of data between general season and this hunt tells us anything else about what FWP’s next move should have been. This is a missed opportunity to analyze the problem outside of the craziness of general season.

I shouldn't have made my remark...

In the past I've tried to explain why mandatory sampling isn't necessary to understand what is going on, but I've never been successful. It just isn't necessary. It's literally science. In addition, as someone said before, they already have CWD numbers and goal is to reduce the population.

Edit: This is what 406life wrote: "I had a similar question that I asked a couple of the commissioners. It came down to the known prevalence rate was so high that further testing wouldn't add much to the known data. The other, larger reason for not having mandatory testing was simply dollars. There wasn't enough funding to staff people and test samples to have a mandatory."

 

[MTelkHuntress]

New York is the only state with enough balls to hit it early and hit it hard. They’ve had no further detections.

I cant help but wonder how this worked because of the nature of the prions to stay viable for so long in the soil, but that is very interesting that there was no further detection.

Its such a frustrating situation. Reducing population is the focus but mandatory testing would give some extremely valuable information across many of these districts. It sucks to think about healthy deer getting wiped out. It would be interesting to see the prevalence on some of these private properties since the deer congregate more, which I'm sure accelerates transmission.

 

[timmy]

We are shooting from the hip with incomplete science. Test every single deer that get shot especially during general season, and if we don’t have the money add it to license fees. Then you might have the start of some real data. If it’s that much of an emergency let’s take drastic measures.

 

[Nameless Range]

I shouldn't have made my remark...

In the past I've tried to explain why mandatory sampling isn't necessary to understand what is going on, but I've never been successful. It just isn't necessary. It's literally science. In addition, as someone said before, they already have CWD numbers and goal is to reduce the population.

Edit: This is what 406life wrote: "I had a similar question that I asked a couple of the commissioners. It came down to the known prevalence rate was so high that further testing wouldn't add much to the known data. The other, larger reason for not having mandatory testing was simply dollars. There wasn't enough funding to staff people and test samples to have a mandatory."

I understand what you have said in the past regarding mandatory testing, and how statistics shows that that wouldn’t be necessary, but I don’t know how well it works if the samples aren’t randomly distributed across the landscape in this instance.

An example would be 70% of the hunters shooting deer on one very willing landowner’s property in one corner of the CWD control area, that may also happen to have the highest prevalence in the whole area. with a sample size as small as successful hunters in this district will be, I wonder how representative a random sample of hunters would be.

Maybe that wouldn’t matter?

That said, maybe the juice isn’t worth the squeeze, and as for 406Life pointed out, if the money isn’t there There isn’t much to be done.

 

[JLS]

The main gripe I have about the proposal is not making testing required. If you’re going to do the management, you better be gathering the data to evaluate it.

This plus the distribution, or potential lack thereof, of hunters. People will flock to whatever public land there is and hammer the piss out of the few deer, and consider it a success story.

 

[mtmuley]

This plus the distribution, or potential lack thereof, of hunters. People will flock to whatever public land there is and hammer the piss out of the few deer, and consider it a success story.

Always folks ready to kill
mtmuley

 

[BuzzH]

I've come to the conclusion that CWD is such a new disease that even the "experts" don't know if many of these draconian "solutions" are going to work. I tend to agree with the mindset that reducing populations MAY or COULD buy time.

But, in the research I've done, it seems even coming up with true prevalence rates is tough because of how the disease effects the animals. Animals with symptoms don't behave normally and are much more likely to be killed by people or other predators. Meaning that even if you randomly sample deer and elk shot by hunters, odds are that a higher percentage of those animals killed by hunters are going to have it because they're just more vulnerable. That potentially skews the data toward a higher prevalence than may actually exist.

That's just one of the many reasons that I'm suspect that attempting to shoot our way out of CWD isn't going to work.

But, I agree with others that the FWP not making mandatory testing part of this hunt makes absolutely no sense. This is just on-par and another classic example of the total and complete disfunction in the MTFWP.

I've all but given up on the FWP doing anything right...other than being a poster child for exactly how NOT to manage wildlife.

 

[RobG]

I understand what you have said in the past regarding mandatory testing, and how statistics shows that that wouldn’t be necessary, but I don’t know how well it works if the samples aren’t randomly distributed across the landscape in this instance.

An example would be 70% of the hunters shooting deer on one very willing landowner’s property in one corner of the CWD control area, that may also happen to have the highest prevalence in the whole area. with a sample size as small as successful hunters in this district will be, I wonder how representative a random sample of hunters would be.

Maybe that wouldn’t matter?

That said, maybe the juice isn’t worth the squeeze, and as for 406Life pointed out, if the money isn’t there There isn’t much to be done.

They do take location data so that should help. It's a swag. Mandatory testing would probably be more likely to help remove any bias in the data from people being more likely to have a deer tested if it looks sick. But at this time they seem to be operating on the principle that reducing population is more important than knowing if it is 35% or 45%. The important statistic will be how many deer are alive in the spring.