Interesting Wyo mule deer article

[LostArra]

A Wyoming mule deer herd is so riddled with CWD it could nearly vanish - WyoFile

Preliminary findings have biologists worried for superinfected deer herd. There’s hope research could help guide chronic wasting disease management — if the public lets it happen.

wyofile.com

Interesting comments about local pushback on any "management strategies" and the prions in the shipped hay.

It doesn't appear point creep has been an issue for the hunt area and this article will probably keep it that way.

 

[TaperPin]

That’s too bad - not for the weird agricultural deer area 157, but for the healthy elk and bighorn populations found in the mountains north west of there. CWD in the middle of the wind river valley means it’s not long before any drainages that flow into the wind river will have infected animals.

The pushback on research doesn’t surprise me - Wyoming folks are practical if nothing else - if there is nothing that can be done to stop the spread, it’s hard to convince someone to take money out of their pocket to pay for it. On the other hand, if CWD crosses into sheep and cattle there will be a huge push to get it under control. Some people are discovering there are worthwhile things government should be spending money on, despite the current crop of politicians.

 

[wytx]

Lots to ponder from that article.
I know Hank Edwards and yes we are some of the sportspersons that didn't and don't like the management G&F proposed for our herd . They wanted to drastically reduce buck numbers due to what I would say is flawed data.
They keep saying we have no mature bucks due to cwd but we have about 30 year of tooth age data that say otherwise. Their proposals would not have affected the prevalence rate in bucks. but sure would have looked good overall when there were about half as many bucks left - or less.

Yes that herd needs to have something done or tried, if those numbers accurate they are startling. I'm juts not so sure killing them off will work, has not been shown to in other areas where tried .
I believe one state was able to control; the spread of cwd by killing massive amounts of deer in a very newly infected area, but I think this area may be too far gone for that.

Taper WG&F did a study on cattle at Sybille, they had I think 25 head or so in their cwd infected pens for 20 + years and no transmission to them.
Many say cwd and scrappies are the same just different species oriented.
Scrapies has been controlled by selected breeding in sheep I believe.
Perhaps a new live test for cwd prions would allow selected breeding of certain doe that have the resistant gene.