HuntFishQuest.com

Ok I'm stealing this from Tngrizzley's post to see if we can get an answer here. Is the meat safe for human and or dog consumption or should it be tossed?

People have been eating meat from CWD infected meat for several decades, and there has not been a definitive case of human infection resulting from that. However, there is also lab data that suggests the prion is transmissible to primates. The disease has such a slow progression, we simply do not have enough data at this time to definitively say it is 100% safe. I urge everyone to read up on it and make your own decision. https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cwd/transmission.html

Thanks for the info Diehard. Do you think feeding the deer is really one of the major causes of it spreading?

Absolutely! I am 100% against feeding deer. It concentrates them and increases disease spread.

Diehard wrote: ↑Sun Nov 07, 2021 9:46 pm Absolutely! I am 100% against feeding deer. It concentrates them and increases disease spread.

I'm not trying to start a disagreement. Just trying to better understand. You say your against feeding deer. Is that of any kind? Corn, mineral licks, small plots, ect..

I am against placing food on the landscape. I am not against growing food on the landscape. When food is placed, there are several problems.

1) we pile it up which concentrates animals and increases contact
2) non-target species get a lot of it. Raccoons love it, survive longer, reproduce more, then eat more turkey and quail eggs!
3) it is usually less nutritious than natural food unless you are feeding really expensive formulated deer food, which most are not. They are feeding corn. A sudden change in diet can drastically affect deer as well.
4) there are other pathogens that affect other species. Aflatoxin in corn has very little effect on deer, but can decimate your turkey population in a matter of days if conditions are right.


Sometimes I need to do a camera census on a property. When that is the case, I use trace mineral salt in a bag and create a salt lick. Salt will kill most pathogens. However, if you are in a CWD area, do not even do that. Salt will not denature the CWD prion, just increase its spread from deer to deer.

So how are the Elk out west healthy?
Is it because of distance in between?

I am curious on this.

Many elk and mule deer populations have declined over the past several decades. Also, as you suspect, the population densities are not nearly as high.