What about the deer farms that have 12-13 year old deer not even showing symptoms yet and have it?l
Which ones? Apple creek in WI? Show me…
The distrust in government agencies is at an all time high. I don’t go down the Covid/CWD rabbit hole very often.. but in reality i think it’s a pretty good example of why people really question the CWD narrative being pushed.
“trust the experts” (word for word comparison here)
“2 weeks to slow the spread, this will slow the spread” (“stopping hunting over supplemental feed can help slow the spread!”)
“mask up, everything helps” (“don’t take a tool for the agencies tool box”)
“6 feet away!” “Don’t spend time with your family at gatherings like holidays, if you do you’re to blame!” (“We can’t unnaturally congregate herd animals at a feed pile, even in small doses”)
Now we have preemptive pardons, ivermectin actually did help, covid is on what, it’s 6th strain?.., and people are on booster number 6? Or is it 7 or 8 by now? (I have nothing against people that got vaccinated, it was their choice.)
It’s hard to ignore the facts that not all the time the government is correct, nor do they have the people’s best interest in mind (hell, sometimes it’s even about the money!). The last week should show people a lot of that.
We keep getting told deer die from CWD, it’s always fatal!, when 99.99% of the time it’s something else. If a deer is found dead, or hit by a car, or shot by a hunter it’s because of CWD! 3 years ago if I got mauled by a bear and then tested positive for Covid, I’m pretty certain every agrees they would’ve marked me down due to dying from Covid even though it was the bear attack that actually got me.
I find the comparisons to Covid to be lazy and lacking in creativity. But I get why that’s an easy and convenient argument.
But Covid mortality rates were what, a fraction of a percent? Prion diseases in humans and animals - 100% fatal. No record, ever, of a human or animal surviving or recovering from a prion disease. Ever.
Sure something might kill you before it does, but like a pack of wolves, prion diseases will run you down and kill you if given enough time. We know for a fact, that for the overwhelming majority of deer, that once infected the clock starts ticking and they have a 16-24 months to live. Sometimes a bit less, sometimes a bit more. The GPS collar research shows this, the experiments run under observation from start to finish show this.
Denying this truth is categorical denialism.
Now, I would agree that if CWD was spread as easily as something like Covid or the flu or the common cold, we would not be wasting time arguing about baiting bans. There would be no point. I know I wouldn’t bother, and I would assume the game and fish wouldn’t either….If it was that contagious.
However, the evidence (infectivity and transmission studies) quite clearly show that is not the case. That it takes doses that are mostly unnatural, or in a natural environment, it takes repeated and prolonged exposure to infect deer. And since this stuff stays in the environment, the more you allow it to grow or provide reservoirs for it (like bait piles) the larger those doses accumulate in the environment and the more animals you can infect from that spot.
But let’s review, you and those apart of your group have either directly supported, or indirectly supported, the following claims.
Humic acid is the cure - no evidence to support that
Copper is the cure - no evidence to support that
It doesn’t kill deer - evidence supports the opposite.
It’s not contagious - evidence supports the opposite
It’s a conspiracy to end hunting - no evidence to support that
It’s a nutritional disease - no evidence to support that
It can be cured with “70 nutrients” - no evidence to support that.
There are no pictures of prions - there are pictures, that includes cryogenic electron microscopy and atomic imaging. The latter of which is the holy grail of the field, equivalent to the mapping of the human genome in the prion field. Yet, a bunch of deer hunters who didn’t even know what a prion was a couple years ago, are calling the entire field of prion diseases in humans and animals a hoax, which includes one of the greatest achievements (atomic imaging) in the field. I’m kidding right? I wish….
Hell, they’re working on vaccines and they have demonstrated in rodents and cattle that they can create genetically engineered animals and knock out PrPc completely and make animals completely immune to prion diseases. Talk about some freaky Frankenstein stuff!
Yet here you guys are, a couple years of google searches, YouTube videos, and a bucket full of confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance and you think you’ve got everything figured out.
But oh wait, now the claim is that, “oh it’s real but it’s overblown.”
It’s like an amoeba of an argument, ever shifting into obfuscation.
I suppose next you’ll tell me the deer at RW ranch in those photos wouldn’t have died of CWD, as they were nothing but skin and bones. As a reminder, no animal or human, has ever been documented to have recovered from or survived a prion disease. Ever.
But I would guess none of this will change anything with you guys. Which is why I don’t say any of it to change minds. Only to get info out to the more reasonable folks out there lurking.
