Just when you’ve thought you’ve heard of everything

[Jason Snyder]

But, we shouldn't forget to give .gov the credit it has earned in both the creation and lack of containment of CWD.

Proof of their involvement in the creation?

They actually tried several times to eradicate it from the Sybille research facility.

 

[t_carlson]

Proof of their involvement in the creation?

They actually tried several times to eradicate it from the Sybille research facility.

I have no direct evidence that CWD was created in a government lab. That evidence, of course, is not available to the public. However, epidemiologists are confident that CWD did not exist in wild populations prior to the 1960's.

So it is established by circumstantial evidence that:

1) A new disease appeared at research facility.
2) Said disease is believed to have jumped species from sheep to ungulates.
3) The research being conducted at the facility was based around studying disease transmission between sheep and ungulates.
4) Prior to that, sheep and ungulates had been in contact with each other in the wild and the disease never developed.

At the very least, .gov negligently created the circumstances for CWD to jump species and then failed to contain the disease. But, research procedures for CWD, scrapie, mad cow, etc. typically involve intentionally infecting animals with high loads the disease. There's a heck of a lot more going on than just putting two animals in a pen together and seeing what develops.

If you'd rather buy the .gov explaination, then go right ahead. For me, that is about as solid of proof as you'll ever get when dealing with these sorts of things.

What proof do you have that the government is telling you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth???

 

[Jason Snyder]

If you'd rather buy the .gov explaination, then go right ahead. For me, that is about as solid of proof as you'll ever get when dealing with these sorts of things.

What proof do you have that the government is telling you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth???

I don’t have proof, nor do I have the illusion everyone is 100% truthful, all of the time regardless of their employer and/or government affiliations. People in government lie and try to cover things up and people outside of government lie and try to cover things up.

TSE diseases have been around a long time and we still don’t have a full grasp of them. I agree in that the research conditions allowed the species jump, that’s a little different to me than saying the .gov created it. Lots of driving in the rear view here IMO. YMMV.

 

[Carr5vols]

We all know how this will turn out. Mr. Stumpbroke sheep breeder will get probation and a fine of maybe $5k...will transfer his "business" to a family member and keep on keeping on. Legal system is a joke on these cases.

 

[TWHrunner]

STATEMENT FROM WSF ON
CLONING WILD SHEEP "As the world's preeminent wild sheep conservation organization with the finest and most mission-driven network of chapters and affiliates, Wild Sheep Foundation (WSF) is sickened by this abhorrent effort to corrupt one of God's finest and most regal creations, the wild sheep. In a word, disgusting”
stated WSF's President & CEO
Gray Thornton

“Sickened by…” is the most appropriate feeling that comes to my mind as well here.

 

[chindits]

It seems odd that a lab would just do this type of work, kind of freelancing genetics. Makes a person wonder what other labs are doing for a person with a checkbook. If I only had some Irish Elk DNA and unlimited financial resources, wolves be damned.

 

[IDVortex]

It seems odd that a lab would just do this type of work, kind of freelancing genetics. Makes a person wonder what other labs are doing for a person with a checkbook. If I only had some Irish Elk DNA and unlimited financial resources, wolves be damned.

Just pray it's not the federal goverment sending funds to any labs. We don't need anymore outbreaks.

 

[chindits]

I am not worried about federally funded labs and research in the context of this thread. You have misidentified my loyalty.

 

[sndmn11]

In Montana we kind of frown on the idea of a non-native wildlife species mucking things up so some old codger can make a little money.

Brown trout, rainbow trout, pheasant, chukar, huns, eurasian doves all fit that category but are celebrated.
*Edited to add --> horses and cattle

I can understand wanting to keep captive high fence animals a part from wild and native animals. I don't understand the pursuit of prosecuting someone who is keeping their captive animals captive. It comes across to me as the government being salty that a person is making money from animals in a new way.

 

[t_carlson]

Brown trout, rainbow trout, pheasant, chukar, huns, eurasian doves all fit that category but are celebrated.
*Edited to add --> horses and cattle

I can understand wanting to keep captive high fence animals a part from wild and native animals. I don't understand the pursuit of prosecuting someone who is keeping their captive animals captive. It comes across to me as the government being salty that a person is making money from animals in a new way.

All of those animals are here to stay, so there is no point in trying to get rid of them.

That doesn't mean you just allow ANYTHING to come in, though. A hybrid frankensheep that could breed with native populations would unleash hell on the bighorn sheep species. Nobody can guarantee that such an animal will be contained indefinitely. High fences and humans fail.

 

[GSPHUNTER]

Maybe "deleted member" would be interested in something like this.

 

[TaperPin]

Think of how idiotic the dude was to always have drama following him around and the extra attention that brings. The ones I worry about are still under the radar - smart enough to not get caught, and rich enough to buy whatever technology they want to play with. Look to the billionaires experimenting with polo ponies in Argentina and the huge successes they’ve had cloning and breading horses that outcompete 97.5% of the competition.

I‘m just a dumb carpenter, but have had a few clients over the years that were worth enough money they can’t spend it all - their hobbies and talents varied from dumb trust fund baby doing dumb trust fund baby stuff, to successful corporate executive with a big boner for original paintings, to brilliant overly confident engineer doing overly ambitious designs nobody had seen before. The type of person that builds a carbon fiber submarine, computer app used by most of the human race, or personal space craft - we only hear of the real big successes or really big failures, but there are many more weird projects we never hear of. There must be tens of thousands of people that spend $1M a year on weird hobbies, and it barely puts a dent in their net worth.

It’s only a matter of time before one of them uses genetics to screw up wildlife in ways never seen before - look how close a dude without a billion dollars got. Elon would have just imported a whole herd of Marco Polo sheep as well as a herd of bighorns, had a team of researchers working 7 days a week, and a strange high tech barn outside a Tesla plant with a funny smelling funk. Lol

 

[Mike7]

Maybe someone needs to create a market for potential wildlife advancements, outside of the dangerous, idiotic things that the govt often funds....or a person just needs to use "climate change" and other key words in the govt grant request and actually grow franken sheep on the govt dime as research. And high fence hunters could be used, but instead called private wildlife research management specialists.

Before Marco polo sheep are hunted to extinction, why not see if hybrid sheep with 90-95% desert bighorn and 5% Marco polo dna are just as adapted to the dry, hot North American mountains of the future, but more resistant to for instance pneumonia?

These private "hunting" reserves for franken sheep could be what saves sheep in the end. After all, there is no way that wild bighorn sheep can be expected to adapt to rapid climate change, right?