More JS Paul Smith Drivel

More JS Paul Smith Drivel: https://www.jsonline.com/story/sports/columnists/paul-smith/2018/01/31/smith-its-time-pay-hunters-killing-cwd-positive-deer-wisconsin-cash-incentive-program-combat-cwd-wis/1079938001/

This guy needs to find a new job.  This, in another long laundry list of stupid ideas and viewpoints he gets paid to produce.  Basically puts a bounty on deer, which will not reduce CWD prevalence.  How about investing that $10,000,000 in prion research instead?  Actually may make progress towards a real fix.  

If you want to play the political game , here you are . Money spent on Deer Czar  , lack of Crack down on deer farms , not requiring double fenced to prevent contact .  Paying off infected deer farms to destroy contamination. 

Drahts, if you found a fly in your soup, I'm pretty confident you'd blame liberals for putting it there.

JC-  I have tried to self-educate myself on CWD and have always found your feedback to be helpful and to include a model of "common-sense" in the approach to dealing with this complicated disease. I do agree the State and our DNR needs allocate funds and be more active in the vaccine research and development. I beleive this is the only real measure that will stop this disease.

GO2001- Good comments about the DNR not using the UW biomedical services that are available in their own backyard.. That is a head-scratcher!!   We are all avid deer hunters and more importantly tax-payers!!! This is a topic we should be pushing thru our State REPS and even the County deer and Spring hearings..        

"To be blunt,... If you believe deer density has nothing to do with speed of transmission of diseases like this, you have not been reading anything written by people that know what they are talking about. "

Trust me, when it comes to disease transmission, infectivity, and epidemiology, "I know what I am talking about." I am a moron on most topics, but I have a lot of education with these topics. You are correct with "deer density affects speed of transmission of diseases", but where you erred is when you said "like this". The "like this" does not correlate with CWD. For other diseases, reducing deer density is effective. This disease is the perfect storm because it survives for decades in the environment, and has latency period of years, not days, while remaining infective.

"The disease my still survive and spread if the herd is significantly smaller, but it won't spread as fast. That provides what is needed here - TIME."

Parts of Illinois have undergone extensive, and expensive, sharpshooting to eradicate deer in hot spots. Yes, it slowed (still increasing by the way) the rate of spread some, but it continues to spread. Geographically speaking, it has done NOTHING to slow the spread.  This disease needs to be controlled geographically, and eradicating deer has proven not to stop or slow geographic spread.  Once it gets to a new area, this deer eradication will go on for eternity or until a vaccine is developed.  

What does reducing deer density/eradicating deer accomplish? You have to literally spend millions of dollars to sharpshoot, test, and incinerate carcasses. This also will predictably result in loss of hunters - the only tool the DNR has to control the deer herd beyond predators. Remember also, that if you rely on predators to control the herd, prions have proven to remain infective in their feces, and helps propagate the disease further. In addition, you will have to literally eradicate every single deer for decades to ensure the prion is no longer present in the soil.  

This does not seem like a workable solution, and is not a solution at all.  Instead of having some deer to hunt and infected, you have a smaller number of deer and infected.  In both scenarios, the environmental contamination is going to be a problem.  Without vaccine development or some discovery (ie. spiroplasma causation), both scenarios result in the same outcome.  Like I have stated before, there is nothing humans can do from a deer management perspective to control the disease.  Severely reducing deer density will cost more money and provide no measurable benefit.    

Brad, I agree that a reduction in the herd will lower prevalence and transmission rates.  Like you said, utilizing that tool in the tool box will buy us time.  Unfortunately, since our DNR has shown they intend to do nothing with that time, why give it to them?  They only appear to want to use that one tool to obtain their goal of a lower deer herd.  They have shown nothing that gives me hope that they want to get rid of CWD.  It is a disease that can live in the soil for an indeterminate amount of time, so even with a low population, it is not going anywhere.  You can't kill it off.  The only true solution I am aware of is the hope of an oral vaccine that can immunize future generations to slowly remove the disease from the landscape.  I have been following this issue since 2002.  Other states and Canada have been involved in CWD vaccine research for years with some progress and some failures.  It has shown enough to give me and others hope. Our DNR headquarters is literally blocks from a well recognized University with an excellent reputation in biomedical research.  The fact that they have done virtually nothing to utilize that resource is wholly irresponsible and shortsighted.  Until they do work with UW on CWD vaccine research or put forth a different plan that can removed CWD from the landscape, it will be hard for me to support. 

To be blunt,... If you believe deer density has nothing to do with speed of transmission of diseases like this, you have not been reading anything written by people that know what they are talking about.

The disease will still survive and spread if the herd is significantly smaller, but it won't spread as fast.  That provides what is needed here - TIME.

On second thought, I think I'm done with this one.  Believe what you want.  Ignore the facts if you want.  Do what you want, whenever you want.  That's what it is all about today, isn't it?

Brad, said:

 "From my point of view, the best course of action for the state's deer herd AT THE PRESENT TIME WITH THE TOOLS WE HAVE, would be to reduce the population of the deer herd in the infected areas.    Obviously, this isn't a long term plan.  But it is something that we could do now that would help."

I am not sold on this being a good or acceptable plan.  First, we really don't know if herd reduction really makes a difference.  Secondly, without any viable method to control/contain/vaccinate in sight, when would herd reduction come to an end?

Similar to JC's points which based on the reading I have done on the subject show a good understanding.

JC - I don't disagree with you on any particular point.  I'm just pointing out that what you want seems like it is a long way off. 

From my point of view, the best course of action for the state's deer herd AT THE PRESENT TIME WITH THE TOOLS WE HAVE, would be to reduce the population of the deer herd in the infected areas.  

Obviously, this isn't a long term plan.  But it is something that we could do now that would help.
  

"Respectfully, exactly what would you be looking to get for your $10,000,000? A vaccine for the wild deer herd? Don't get me wrong - I don't agree with the article either, but the odds of finding a way to treat wild sick animals or somehow vaccinate them all is very unlikely to down-right impossible. "

So do nothing?  Vaccines have been successful in the past for wild animals.  This would be in the form of either bait packets, or the cheapest and most effective way, requiring hunters to add a supplement to bait piles.  Here is a current successful vaccination program for rabies in the eastern U.S. : http://epi.publichealth.nc.gov/cd/rabies/orv.html

$10,000,000 annually is a large investment towards vaccine development, and only from 1 state.  I have always said that the state could sell baiting/food plot permits to hunters annually to generate revenue, with all funds earmarked towards R&D for an effective oral vaccine.  A large part of the reason little progress has been made towards a vaccine is the lack of funding available for it.  Since CWD has yet to infect humans or livestock, it sits lower on the totem pole for funding.  Right now, the only chance at vaccine development sits in the hands of scientists studying human/livestock TSEs other than CWD. 

"CWD will continue to spread as long as deer populations remain high enough to allow it. There is no other path to follow - keep the numbers in infected areas VERY low or risk the spread to other parts of the state."

This has been already shown to be INEFFECTIVE, and the result is always the same.  Illinois is the only state that has shown some impact on decreasing the transmission rate by keeping deer herds in certain areas to almost unhuntable populations by using sharpshooters.  However, the geographic spread continues to propagate, and Illinois has admitted that geographic spread is uncontrollable.  Even with this minimal amount of success, the disease will continue to spread, and now we have sharpshooters instead of hunters shooting deer.  I would guess hunters in this area have probably started dropping out in large numbers.  Do we just kill all the deer for decades so they don't die from CWD instead?  Doesn't seem like a viable solution, and that is potentially more costly than vaccine development.  Year after year of sharpshooting to cover the northwoods, or pay for helicopter sharpshooting, would be very expensive.  In addition, these deer would probably have to be incinerated upon death at an unknown cost.

So we either do nothing and our grandkids don't hunt and our land is worth pennies on the dollar, or we try to find a WORKABLE solution.  If a vaccine is impossible, then in 50 years most of our grandkids won't be hunting, or just shooting small bucks and cutting off the horns.  Bucks most likely won't make it past 2.5 years with CWD raging through the herd.  If I were young, I wouldn't be spending a dime on hunting land right now.

One thing that most people are forgetting.............science requires risk and acceptance of failure, in simple terms its also known as trial and error.  And  most wiscosnin hunters demand that "their deer herd" not be subject to trial and error experimentation. Weve been through this war before.

Respectfully, exactly what would you be looking to get for your $10,000,000?  A vaccine for the wild deer herd?  Don't get me wrong - I don't agree with the article either, but the odds of finding a way to treat wild sick animals or somehow vaccinate them all is very unlikely to down-right impossible.

CWD will continue to spread as long as deer populations remain high enough to allow it.  There is no other path to follow - keep the numbers in infected areas VERY low or risk the spread to other parts of the state.

"Let's agree to some facts at the outset: Chronic wasting disease is spreading geographically and increasing in prevalence in Wisconsin; the fatal deer disease has been linked to herd declines in the West; it is extremely difficult to control; all measures used to curb its spread in Wisconsin have failed."

Can't agree with that premise/statement/

"It's beyond debate that CWD poses a threat to the future of our $1 billion deer hunting resource."

I will debate that using DATA from the western states that, "funny" still have very hunt-able herds after 25 years of CWD.

"We need a new hammer to hit the disease. A big one. And quick."

Based on what science?

This isn't the first time, and will not be the last.  If you pay attention to his articles you can tell he is a tree hugging liberal who hunts and fishes once in awhile.  

What a Fu@#$Ing moron. First most deer show no sign of CWD and greedy pricks will kill everything brown in hopes of cashing in. Man I can't believe an outdoor writer would be so dumb. Just baffled.