Deer hunting season is here, as hunters march out into our endangered wilderness with CWD infected deer. Don't worry, we don't think human ingestion of CWD infected venison will kill you.
Hunter Beware: What you don't know will Kill You: In the "bad is good" Bizarro World of Republican politics, who cares about the spread of brain killing prions:
The country's prion disease surveillance center that looks for new brain disorders potentially caused by eating meat from infected animals, would lose all of its federal funding and cease operations under President Donald Trump's proposed fiscal 2018 budget.
The disease is in the same family as chronic wasting disease (CWD), which is endemic in Wisconsin's deer herd. The loss in funding would come at a time of heightened concern over whether chronic wasting disease can infect people. Recent research showed that it could infect monkeys that were fed venison from infected deer. At the same time, the number of Creutzfeldt-Jakob cases has jumped substantially nationally and especially in Wisconsin, where chronic wasting disease has now been identified in wild deer in 18 counties.
The disease is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, a family that includes scrapie as well as mad cow disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob (both of which are fatal to humans) … health experts, including at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, have long issued strong advice against eating venison from CWD-positive animals. "Venison from deer harvested inside the CWD Management Zone should not be consumed or distributed to others until CWD test results on the sources deer are known to be negative."
Chronic wasting disease has arrived in Wisconsin's deer factory. State officials announced two CWD-positive white-tailed deer were found at a Waupaca County shooting preserve. The two CWD-positive bucks represented the first findings of the fatal deer disease in the central Wisconsin deer hunting hotbed.
Worse yet, the state agency with authority over captive cervid facilities - the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection - isn't doing anything to snuff it out ... it appears the DNR has lost its will to combat CWD. And the state's agriculture and consumer protection agency has clearly sided with the business interests in the deer farming industry.
"I've been dreading this day," said Todd Schill, 55, of Waupaca who has deer hunted in the county for 40 years. "I didn't buy hunting land here to be next to CWD."
Welcome to "small government" deregulation. Again, maybe stopping CWD will bring hunting back:
Jan. 4th, 2017: Notably, hunter participation also was down. The agency sold 598,867 gun licenses, a 40-year low and the first time the number has dipped below 600,000 since 1976. Hunters registered 196,785 deer during the 2016 Wisconsin gun deer season, the lowest total in 34 years. A longer term solution may involve looking beyond user fees ... (fees have the) potential to harm state efforts aimed at reversing a decline in hunting ... The DNR outlined other alternatives that include cuts to wildlife and fish-stocking programs and new efforts to attract more people to hunting and fishing.
Voluntary testing is available...voluntary, what could go wrong there?
Guys with Guns, what could go Wrong? While Republicans remove any kind of firearm training, responsible gun owners are rising to the challenge, it's just going to take going through a few growing pains first.
Good responsible gun owners don't need no training, they're the real Americans, carrying on the hunting tradition...let's see now, day 1...
Three hunters shot and wounded themselves Saturday. A 49-year-old man shot himself in the right ankle. A 51-year-old man in Shawano County shot himself in the leg when he bent over and his holstered handgun fired. And in Forest County, a 49-year-old Crandon man was sitting in the cab of his truck when he saw a deer around 9 a.m. When he attempted to move his rifle, it went off, sending a bullet through his legs and the truck’s seat and door.
You might be interested to know that CWD was most likely brought into the state by imported deer for use as livestock in "deer farms" where they are shot for trophies. In close confinement and eating from common troughs like cattle the disease spreads like wildfire. Deer escape these "ranches" and spread the disease among the wild population.
ReplyDeleteThe latest 3 outbreaks are now in northern counties at Three Lakes and Oconto and one in the west (town?). The former policy was similar to that of mad cow disease in the UK where the entire herd is destroyed. You might be shocked to discover that current policy is to allow them to keep operating and put a second fence around the enclosures.
With infection rates over 40% in the south how long before it takes hold in the north?
Jurassic Park anyone?