CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE<\/span><\/strong> is a wildlife plague<\/a> so strange and novel that it baffles even experts. It also eventually kills nearly every one of its hosts in excruciating and prolonged agony.<\/p>\n Somehow, this diabolical disease has become one of my regular beats. I try to follow updates from researchers<\/a> and to report on new information that can help wildlife managers and hunters understand and respond to the emerging knowledge of its origins and implications. Along the way, I\u2019ve tried to find slivers of hope in the research while also reminding hunters that CWD is the biggest threat to our traditions of deer hunting.<\/p>\n But all that traditional reporting is often not impactful. I\u2019ve come to realize that hunters don\u2019t like to either receive or respond to bad news. It\u2019s way easier to perpetuate our traditional deer camp, or to keep our trophy-buck management program in place, or to dismiss the research<\/a> into CWD as \u201cjunk science\u201d than it is to recognize that chronic wasting disease will\u2014sooner or later\u2014impact the way we hunt deer in North America.<\/p>\n It may also impact our own health. While there\u2019s no evidence<\/a> that humans can become infected with CWD, it\u2019s a member of what are called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (or TSEs<\/a>) that include Mad Cow Disease in Britain and a brain-wasting disease called Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease that can infect humans.<\/p>\n Part of the problem with communicating the urgency of CWD is that its science is dense and complicated. The disease is caused by a bent protein, called a prion<\/a>, that is not alive but which can infect deer or elk that come in contact with it through licking a branch or sniffing a butt. But curiously not every deer (or elk, caribou, or moose; the disease affects all members of the deer family) gets infected. Another complication is that transmission is invisible. And the disease\u2019s impacts are further obscured by the fact that CWD-infected deer and elk, whose brains are being worm-eaten by this rogue protein, often die from something else<\/a>. They\u2019re hit by cars or killed by predators or die of dehydration because they\u2019ve been transformed into hollow-eyed hulls.<\/p>\n Compounding all those problems is the fact that science is often nuanced. There is often not a single answer to a simple question. Conclusions about CWD\u2019s causation, distribution, and prevalence are qualified by margins of error and statistical uncertainty. The situation is further muddied by the corrupting influence of profit. Commercial deer farms are a repository for CWD<\/a>, and while the industry has helped advance our knowledge of the disease and its transmission, deer farmers have been resistant to regulations<\/a> designed to keep our wild herds healthy.<\/p>\n But if you talk to enough CWD researchers, and listen closely, they often have a lot more to say about the disease than their science\u2014or supervisors\u2014allow. Some of them have wild fantasies about how our deer herd will recover, and others are willing to share their opinions about whether the disease could infect humans, but none of them are willing to comment on the record.<\/p>\n What you\u2019re going to read here is the most speculative, and poorly attributed, story you\u2019ll likely ever read about chronic wasting disease. But it also may be the most important, because this is what CWD researchers, protected by anonymity and free from their requirement to defend their positions, want you to know. These are outtakes from a series of interviews, or they\u2019re the hushed revelations shared in a bar at the end of a professional conference.\u00a0<\/p>\n But\u00a0why publish a bunch of quotes and predictions if researchers won\u2019t have their names printed alongside them?\u00a0 Because these perspectives hint at where CWD research is headed,\u00a0how very far it still has to go, and why we should care a lot more about its implications.<\/p>\n We have vaccines to protect us from smallpox and polio, and more recently, immunizations for Covid-19 and evolving strains of the common flu. So why can\u2019t we cure CWD?<\/p>\n \u201cHonestly, I don\u2019t even know what we\u2019re fighting,\u201d said one biologist in a moment of candor. \u201cI get that it\u2019s a bent protein, but what is it? It\u2019s not a virus or a bacteria. It\u2019s not alive but it\u2019s not really dead, either. And you can\u2019t detect it until its host is dead. That doesn\u2019t make any sense.\u201d<\/p>\n If there\u2019s no realistic hope for a cure, there actually has been a good deal of work on detecting CWD in live animals, at least in the controlled environment of commercial deer farms. Veterinarians have figured out that they can detect CWD in tissue punched out of a captured deer. They can also detect CWD in tissue taken from the rectum of a captive deer.<\/p>\n But getting a sample from a wild live deer? That\u2019s still years away.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s actually pretty easy to get a sample from a captive deer, but that\u2019s because they can be captured, tested, marked, recaptured, and then we can follow its disease progression inside a fence,\u201d said another researcher. \u201cImagine doing all that with a wild deer. It could be done, I guess, but it would be so expensive and the sample size would be necessarily small because of the expense and hardship.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUntil we learn how to efficiently and cost-effectively collect samples from wild animals then we\u2019re going to be guessing which individuals have CWD and which don\u2019t. There is some promising evidence that fecal testing can detect CWD in a wild population, but that doesn\u2019t tell us which individual is infected.\u201d<\/p>\n That practical difficulty of recognizing diseased deer is important to acknowledge, because it affects state game agencies\u2019 response to CWD. In some cases\u2014Wisconsin comes to mind\u2014states have pursued an eradication policy<\/a>, aiming to kill every deer within a certain radius from a disease outbreak. Other states have been more restrained, aiming to kill a certain number of deer to reduce densities and therefore prevalence of the disease. But in either case, healthy deer are being culled. And some of those deer may have a natural resistance to CWD. So are we inadvertently removing a possible solution with these remove-and-test operations?<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d be really unpopular for giving props to the game-farm industry, but one thing they\u2019ve done pretty well is they\u2019ve mapped and sequenced the genotypes of deer,\u201d says one wildlife researcher. \u201cThat\u2019s what you do if your business depends on selective breeding, right? The industry has screened tens of thousands of deer for unique genotypes and then tried to link them to resistance to CWD, and they have a handle on three or four [genetic] mutations that are pretty resistant. But in terms of knowing, or even guessing, genotypes of wild populations? We have no idea. So when you\u2019re culling animals you always risk killing the golden goose, that one animal that might be the key to developing generational resistance.\u201d<\/p>\n Many researchers compare CWD to sheep scrapie<\/a>, a TSE that affects domestic sheep and goats.<\/p>\n \u201cYears ago they recognized there were some sheep that were fully resistant to scrapie,\u201d said one CWD researcher. \u201cAgriculture being what it is, they selected those and effectively bred sheep scrapie out of the population by selective breeding. The deer farmers are doing the same thing. They will have some success. But in the wild setting? You have this bad deal where you have some hunters accidentally spreading it. You have populations [of animals] spreading it through normal migration, and there\u2019s no eliminating it once you\u2019ve got it.\u201d<\/p>\n The researcher added what he called a blasphemous observation.<\/p>\n \u201cThis idea of selective breeding might be a key to surviving CWD over the long term,\u201d the researcher said. \u201cStay with me here, but I can see a future where selective breeding for resistance could develop a strain of disease-resistant deer inside a captive population. If our wild deer are wiped out by CWD, then it could be that releasing these captive deer is the only way to return cervids to some landscapes.\u201d<\/p>\n The researcher is suggesting that some deer and elk herds will be wiped out by CWD. It\u2019s already happening in isolated herds of both mule deer and elk in Wyoming<\/a> and Colorado<\/a>, where 20 percent of the population dies every year from CWD-related causes.<\/p>\n \u201cThose places where we\u2019re losing 10 to 20 percent of our deer populations every year to CWD? Those are the places with naturally low population dynamics, because there are so many environmental pressures, from predators to other diseases to poor habitat conditions or tough winters. Before CWD infected those herds, hunters were given about 10 to 20 percent of the surplus to hunt. If CWD is now taking that surplus, then the sportsmen lose out, because I don\u2019t think any game agency wants to hammer these struggling populations so they\u2019ll restrict human harvest, instead.\u201d<\/p>\n Researchers have noticed an interesting population dynamic that may inform how we manage CWD into the future.<\/p>\n \u201cThose populations with low recruitment, like those infected herds in Wyoming and Colorado, may just go away over the next couple decades, but other areas, like the agricultural land in Wisconsin, is showing that they can have a lot of CWD in their deer populations but they\u2019re not seeing a major decrease in overall numbers,\u201d the researcher said. \u201cWhat they are seeing is a decrease in older animals, and not just old bucks. Old does, too. Their age structure has really shifted down to where most of their population is very young. I think we\u2019re going to have to adjust our expectations to be happy with shooting forkhorns.\u201d<\/p>\n And elsewhere?<\/p>\n \u201cI haven\u2019t done these studies personally,\u201d said the researcher, \u201cbut people with fancy ecological modeling are looking at how long an infected population will take to have a herd rebuilt with genetically resistant animals. Their models are saying 50 to 100 years. It\u2019s possible that we\u2019ll see deer go away in our lifetimes. Maybe their recovery won\u2019t happen in our lifetimes, but might happen in our children\u2019s lifetimes. It\u2019s going to happen so slowly in the wild because we can\u2019t accelerate the change like we can in a captive environment. I\u2019m all about wildlife doing what wildlife need to do without a lot of human intervention. But if you\u2019re in the West and you\u2019re used to hunting some of these marginal herds, then my best advice is to start getting used to hunting pronghorns.\u201d<\/p>\n State agencies are spending millions of dollars<\/a> on CWD monitoring, testing, and public information campaigns. Wisconsin spent $32 million in its first five years of combating the disease. Idaho spent $110,000 on CWD monitoring even before the first positive case was detected last November. Many more millions are being poured into researching the disease. In many cases, states have been using hunting-license accounts to cover the work, but this year Congress appropriated<\/a> some $70 million for research as well as management and control efforts.<\/p>\n Some of those funds\u2014to the tune of $9.4 million\u2014was distributed to states and tribes just last month<\/a>. But there are proposals and research projects that could easily consume the balance of the appropriation. When you consider the size and economic consequence of America\u2019s $23 billion deer-hunting industry, funding projects that can slow or stop this existential risk makes good economic sense.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have some research projects that are on hold simply because we don\u2019t have the funding or the personnel to launch them,\u201d said one research advisor. \u201cThese are not small or quick studies. It can take years just to do the clinical work, and more years to determine our findings. Meanwhile, the CWD [distribution] map<\/a> just gets more colors on it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur biggest victim of CWD, besides the deer themselves, is contributions to our Hunters For The Hungry program,\u201d said one wildlife manager who says uncertainty and concern about eating potentially infected venison has cratered donations to food banks in her state. \u201cA lot of processors have dropped out of the program because they don\u2019t want to accept the expense of holding an animal until a clean test comes back or take the chance of processing and distributing a diseased animal.\u201d<\/p>\n As for the underlying question of whether humans are at risk of contracting CWD from diseased meat, the jury is still out, despite tons of research into the topic. Some researchers have gone so far as to inject folded prions from infected deer into the brains of research animals ranging from monkeys to mice, and haven\u2019t been able to detect cross-species transmission. Others have found some transmission, but that study may have been flawed<\/a>.<\/p>\n Most researchers say the current public-health advisory<\/a> from the Centers for Disease Control is sound. It includes recommendations to not shoot sick deer, to wear protective gloves when handling deer, to have animals tested for CWD before eating the meat, and to discard meat from an infected animal in an approved landfill.<\/p>\n If there\u2019s a lot of uncertainty and disagreement about detecting, slowing, or managing the spread of CWD among scientists, there\u2019s one point of vocal unanimity: hunters must help contain CWD by disposing of deer and elk carcasses properly.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there\u2019s pretty wide agreement that CWD is spread by trucks,\u201d said one biologist. \u201cEither the stock trailers that game farms use to haul live deer or the pickups that hunters use to haul dead deer.\u201d<\/p>\n Each state has its own rules governing carcass transport and disposal<\/a>, but they often share a few details. Don\u2019t move brain or nervous tissue from one area to another. That\u2019s doubly critical when moving from a CWD endemic area to a state or place where CWD hasn\u2019t been detected, but it\u2019s good practice anytime and everywhere. Don\u2019t discard carcasses on the landscape. Instead, take them to a Class II landfill. And have your deer or elk tested for CWD. There are plenty of resources<\/a> where you can find details about doing this yourself or taking your harvest to a CWD testing station.<\/p>\n \u201cBottom line: there\u2019s no getting rid of CWD once you have it in a population or on a landscape,\u201d said one wildlife manager. \u201cBelieve me, you don\u2019t want it. But it\u2019s ultimately up to hunters to hold the line.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cImagine watching your grandma with Alzheimer\u2019s, and recording her transformation from a person into a ghost. Every. Single. Day. And you can\u2019t help her or intervene. That\u2019s what it\u2019s like watching these deer die from CWD.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s the day-to-day life of a CWD technician in a major research lab, observing and recording clinical signs of the disease. Most hunters have never seen a deer in the final stages of CWD, because they often seek solitude or are killed by secondary agents before most of us can observe their last days.<\/p>\n \u201cI wouldn\u2019t wish this on my enemies,\u201d says the technician. \u201cIt\u2019s like [these deer] are just gone while they are still alive.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.outdoorlife.com\/uploads\/2022\/11\/10\/GettyImages_cwd_tissue_sample.jpg\")
CWD Is Confusing<\/h2>\n
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We May Be Killing the Wrong Deer<\/h2>\n
![\"Captive](\"https:\/\/www.outdoorlife.com\/uploads\/2022\/11\/10\/high_fence_buck_adobe_stock.jpg\")
CWD Will Affect Deer Hunting<\/h2>\n
![\"Elk](\"https:\/\/www.outdoorlife.com\/uploads\/2022\/11\/10\/GettyImages-cwd_elk_rancher.jpg\")
CWD Management Is Expensive<\/h2>\n
Human Infection Is Still Unknown<\/h2>\n
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Proper Carcass Disposal Is Our Best Defense<\/h2>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.outdoorlife.com\/uploads\/2022\/11\/10\/elk_with_Chronic_wasting_disease.jpg\")
CWD Is Awful<\/h2>\n