So, how much of this spread is being caused by hunters using scents and lures based on deer fluids from farms with deer they don't know are infected? Many times this disease seemingly jumps by hundreds of miles...WAY outside the range deer travel. My contention is that one of the causes of the disease spread is via use of contaminated deer lure products. Personally, I won't use those poisons and if the entire deer lure industry went belly up I'd lose no sleep at all.
The prion resides in the brain stem and and other neurological pathways. So, a hunter who kills a cwd infected deer, field dresses it, takes it home hundreds of miles away and then.skins it and disposes of the head can be a method for spread.
I don't agree. What "anti-hunting news media"?
There has been a lot of that type of reporting over the years. Much of it downright hysterical and strongly supported and referenced by avowed AR activists.
Colorado has done a lot of research since it has been a Hotspot of CWD. Some problematic areas have been game farming and the trading and selling of game farm animals across the country. These are operations run for high fence hunting operations and pen shooting of deer and elk by "hunters"!
Another problem area is the pens themselves. One pen that was inhabited by cwd 8nfected deer was closed and then reopened several years later. The deer placed in the pen rapidly became infected.
Feeding wild deer and elk is a problem. Saliva spreads CWD and bringing animals together Feeding in close proximity spreads it. This points a sticky finger at baiting and feeders which is very popular in some parts of the country.
A long term CWD Hotspot in Colorado has been along the course of the S Platte River. A study was done of prion disease amon the overall population of people who live in this area. This is a predominantly rural population and hunting and consumption of deer is a strong tradition. It looked at the prevalence of brain disease and there was no difference in the rate from the national norm.
A misunderstanding about CWD is that you can't disinfect for it or clean up after it . The only way to kill it for sure is to burn it.
Most of the hunters in my area take their animals to a commercial processor. There would be no way that cwd infected animals were processed without cross contamination by knives, hands, grinders packaging equipment, etc. Yet, my local community doesn't seem to be experiencing a rash of brain disease.
There is no known mechanism for the spread of creutzfeld Jakob. Maybe because cannibalism is so unpopular. It seems to be a spontaneous event. The prion is an unnaturally folded protein that replicates. This is similar to how cancer gets started and grows.
I don't get anything tested unless it's mandatory. That's been only a few times but none has ever tested for the presence of CWD.
Here's some interesting use of language used for test results here in Colorado. If CWD turns up in.a test, the result is reported as CWD detected. If cwd is not shown it is reported as "CWD not detected". A subtle bit of CYA.