Time to start up mineral sites

[harvey lee]

I can find nothing that suggests CWD is spread through saliva.... only that it "might be".

Its here, its there, and it probably always has been. Its been documented in Colorado since the 80's. And your right, once they "find it" here, look out! They will probably try to shoot the whole herd off because MAYBE that will stop it... or MAYBE slow the spread... but who really knows?

Until someone figures out what really causes it and how to actually stop it, I think everyone ought to settle down. The only thing that's wiped out any wild deer herds so far is DNR and Game & Fish jumpin the gun.

I did a little research on this subject and found numerous article's on yes, it can spread by saliva.

Here is a link to a Colorado University that did a study and found CWD can spread through saliva.

http://www.cwd-info.org/index.php/fuseaction/news.detail/ID/19ad730128d756fd0a309e67a9ec92d2

[smsmith]

Numerous scientific papers out there showing that CWD can be spread via any bodily fluid.

The real scary stuff that's out there is the study showing that the CWD prions can be taken up by vegetation. Once/if its shown that a deer eating alfalfa (or any other vegetative matter) infected with CWD prions can get the disease that way..wow..scary stuff.

[slimngrizzly]

I see what youre getting at Harvey... But again its says "may" twice in the first paragraph! And that was in 2006... either they are taking their time telling the world their results... or they still really dont know what CWD is and how exactly its spread. If it is in fact spread by saliva, then I would think since 2006 we would have seen herds dying off in catastrophic numbers.

I guess the way I see it is CWD has been documented since the 60's in the US, and we have a whitetail herd of 30 million strong. If it was going to be a big problem, in the past 50 years, I would think it already would have been....? Maybe its just me.

Smith if what you're saying is true... were all in for some problems! How do you stop something spread through the natural growing food they eat?!?! Yikes!

[smsmith]

Infection rates of bucks over 1.5 years old in WI's CWD zone are approaching 20% as I recall. Infection rates of mulies in some areas of WY and CO are over that percentage.

For me, the "fear" isn't about CWD wiping out whitetails, mulies or elk...its about CWD crossing the species barrier to humans. Yep, its never happened yet that we know of. Of course, neither had Mad Cow until those poor ba$tards in the UK started dropping like flies either.