CWD To Eat Or Not To Eat

[KoolBreeze]

I'm an old man at this point, so I'm not overly concerned for myself but I'd never knowingly feed CWD meat to my family. To me the risk is simply not worth it. I do enjoy the meat but not that much. Now, if I was starving and relied on it for survival I'd likely do different.

 

[jbax]

Recently I encountered my first white tail with a positive CWD result. On the outside, this doe was an incredibly healthy-looking specimen (appearance does not matter) so I picked her out of the many other options in the bunch. A week later before processing, we find out she tested positive for CWD.

1. I am fortunate for the speed that the sample was processed and information was distributed so I had the ability the make an informed decision. The end result was I ended up disposing of this animal. As a hunter, I was having a real-time just treating this animal like a piece of trash. I knew it was the only option as this animal was going up being a donation and I could not make that decision on someone else's behalf.

2. With the testing conducted on the lymph nodes they ran a second test to make sure they did not get a false positive. Interestingly enough they are able to tell how far along the disease is in the infected animal. The scale they have goes from .001-4.5. This deer was a 4.08 on their scale. They do not put this information on the report for obvious reasons but I found it interesting they were able to come up with a result like this.

I ask myself this while the research points to a lack of transmission between species it is not 100% conclusive one way or the other do you eat it? I am just not prepared to put my own or someone else's health at risk. I do believe the CWD prion has always been part of the environment and we are just now scratching the surface of it through research. The question is have we always been eating this meat and not known about it?

The animal was harvested in Wyoming. Wyo GF did the testing and the turnaround time was 4 days.

Personally if they show signs I would not eat it. That may just be me being overly cautious, but I am not willing to put my family or myself in jeopardy. I also say that with a heavy heart. I will not take a healthy animals life without using every single part of it. Now to your point, why did you test? Is CWD really common in your area? I have never tested, so now I’m a little concerned that I may be ingesting “compromised” meat. Good post! Thank you

 

[Btaylor]

Personally if they show signs I would not eat it. That may just be me being overly cautious, but I am not willing to put my family or myself in jeopardy. I also say that with a heavy heart. I will not take a healthy animals life without using every single part of it. Now to your point, why did you test? Is CWD really common in your area? I have never tested, so now I’m a little concerned that I may be ingesting “compromised” meat. Good post! Thank you

I see people comment often that if an animal shows signs they wont eat it. That's the thing with CWD, it doesnt work like EHD where the animal is relatively quickly going to show signs and die. Deer can be positive for CWD for a long time before it manifest into terminal illness. Based on comments form folks around or involved with the first year of testing here, the overwhelming majority of positive tested deer showed no physical signs of illness. There is still so much unknown about it. But after 40+ years of study there is to this point no evidence that it presents an issue to humans. That said, this is the one area where I have no issues at all with disposal or waste of meat if the hunter is concerned about personal/family health because that kill in some small measure has helped reduce the potential for increased spread of the disease.

 

[Sconsinbrown]

If your doe or buck tests positive, does the DNR in your state reissue you a tag?

 

[Durran87]

We get another tag in WI and it’s good for the following year and not weapon specific.

 

[Durran87]

It’s hard to throw it away, but I will not eat cwd positive meat. I quit getting any sausage made from places where all of the deer get mixed together. Here are 4 great webinars on current CWD info:

Outreach resources

Educational Resources Below are a selection of outreach materials designed to explain the complex science around chronic wasting disease transmission, spread, testing, and remediation efforts.

mnpro.umn.edu

 

[Kslineman]

Definitely not going to feed it to my family. We had our first positive test this year out of 8 samples in the last 5 years. I had heard of other positives from this area, I will no longer be doe hunting that spot. 5 day turn around to send to kstate, then you have to disinfect everything you used. I had quartered this one and put in beer fridge in shed. I hope an in the field test becomes available