CWD Article worth the read.

JakeH

Long Time Member
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Stumbled across this and thought I would share here.

______________________________________________

Was There Ever a Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD)?
Horace Gore, Wildlife Biologist
Was there ever a chronic wasting disease (CWD)? Science says “N0.” If not, then what is CWD? Researchers at USDA, Agricultural Research Service, Ames, Iowa using the Western Blot test say that CWD is “indistinguishable” from scrapie, a sheep disease that was first found in sheep in 1732, but not known in cervids (deer, elk, moose, etc).Their work shows that CWD has the same molecular profile as scrapie. In essence, “Chronic Wasting Disease” per se never has existed, and scrapie is not an insidious disease of cervids, having existed in Texas and U.S. environs for 300 years.
In a continuing study by a team headed by Dr. Justin Greenlee to determine if scrapie can be transmitted to white-tailed deer, and returned from deer to sheep, researchers learned that deer are 100 % susceptible to scrapie. The study also determined that standard IHC and Elisa tests are not adequate for differentiating CWD and scrape. This indicates that past CWD surveillance work in Texas, using these two tests, has shown a false hypothesis. The molecular profiles of CWD and scrapie (PrPSc), using the Western Blot test, show to be one in the same.
Research on CWD and scrapie goes even further. Dr. Greenlee’s USDA team has looked into the molecular profiles of scrapie in three genotypes of sheep, and compared them to CWD in mule deer. One of the sheep genotypes is “indistinguishable” from CWD. Two sheep genotypes show differences in profile, but when tested separately, they show a lot of overlap with mule deer CWD.
The USDA team believes that CWD came from sheep (scrapie) to mule deer; then to elk, and then to whitetails and other cervids. Like all research teams, they say that “Another study is needed……..” However, to date they believe, based on a combination of research factors, that CWD did come from sheep, which means that CWD is either scrapie, or a variant of scrapie.
Let’s sum it up: A transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) that was discovered 55 years ago, and called “Chronic Wasting Disease” (CWD) has now been determined to have the same molecular profile as scrapie, which has been known for 300 years. It would seem prudent then, to assume that CWD is simply scrapie, or a variant of scrapie, which has been a part of our environment for three centuries or more.
The discovery of “CWD” in 1967 was a scientific blunder! The entire scenario that Dr. Elizabeth Williams, a veterinary pathologist from Wyoming, faced at Colorado State was simply a mule deer, mixed with sheep and elk, that became ill in the research pen. She took this illness as being a new TSE, and labeled It “Chronic Wasting Disease”, when in truth the disease of the mule deer was simply scrapie.
All of the animals, according to the literature, were being fed a crude diet as part of the research. The diet, along with scrapie, may have been the cause of debilitation in the mule deer. At the time, Dr. Williams had no way of knowing that the malady was scrapie, because the sheep disease was not known in cervids, and she relied on test methods of that time that could not distinguish between the molecular profiles of scrapie and her new “CWD.” Dr. William’s discovery was a false hypothesis that has spread across the deer hunting World and academic circles, with no proof or accountability.
It seems that the research team at Colorado State made an honest mistake, brought about by an academic desire to find a new TSE—Chronic Wasting Disease. However, Dr. Williams hung a bell on her false CWD that has been followed by sheep- like state and federal authorities—most not knowing exactly why they are following the bell. However,Texas state agencies have used CWD, with no legislated authority, in their agenda to control and harass landowners, deer hunters, and deer breeders for the last 10 years.
Truth is, Texas Animal Health Commission has absolutely no authority over white-tailed or Mule deer in Texas, and Texas Parks and Wildlife has no authority to depopulate (Kill) breeder deer without a demand for such action from TAHC. So, depopulation of thousands of breeder deer over the last 10 years has been illegal.
Is CWD/scrape a deadly disease? Not hardly. Dr. James Kroll, white-tailed deer specialist, author, and past Czar of Wisconsin’s deer program puts it rather bluntly in two questions. 1) Does CWD/scrape have any effect on deer herds? The answer is NO. White-tailed deer are thriving in Texas, and expanding their range. Not a single whitetail is known to have died from CWD. 2) Does CWD/scrape have any effect on human health? The answer is NO. Texans annually consume about 15 million pounds of deer meat, and a loop on the human protein prevents the rogue prions of CWD/scrapie from engaging with human proteins. The summation to these two questions is “No”, and that CWD/scrapie is not a problem to cervids or human health.
Dr. Williams “jumped the gun,” as they say, and was probably anxious to get academic notoriety, and possibly some good grants. However, from what is known today, the "Chronic Wasting Disease" that Williams found is nothing but scrapie, and there never was a chronic wasting disease
 
!
Remember, CWD didn't come from the Bible—it was derived by Dr. Beth Williams and a research team at Colorado State! The “deadly” and “insidious” disease has been over-blown, and the 206,000 tests in Texas ($10 million) are worthless. Not one whitetail is known to have died ANYWHERE from CWD/scrapie, and the entire Texas fiasco has been aimed at landowners, hunters, and deer breeders.
There is good reason to consider CWD as being scrapie. This, from Dr. Justin Greenlee, USDA, Ames, Iowa using the Western Blot test, is significant:
“In our study, 100% of whitetails were susceptible to scrape”
"Scrapie transmits to white-tailed deer by the oral route, and has a molecular profile similar to CWD, and is distinct from the scrapie inoculum.''
"While scrapie is not known to occur in wild deer, experimental cases are difficult to differentiate from CWD."
“Some molecular profiles of CWD and scrapie are indistinguishable using the Western blot test.”
"We have previously demonstrated that scrapie has a 100% attack rate in white-tailed deer after either intracranial or oral inoculation. Samples that developed scrapie had TWO distinct Western Blot test patterns: Samples developed from cerebellum had a banding pattern similar to the scrapie inoculum, WHEREAS, samples from brainstem and lymph nodes had a banding pattern similar to CWD."
“The results of this study suggest MANY similarities in the manifestations of CWD and scrapie in white-tailed deer.”
“We believe that CWD came from sheep to mule deer; then to elk, and then to white-tailed deer and other cervids.” (Sheep are infected by only one TSE—scrapie)
There were 55 million sheep in the U.S in 1940, and prions of scrapie could be anywhere. That might explain why “CWD” shows up without any pattern of distribution.
Street talk would say that CWD and scrapie are one in the same, with” CWD” simply being a variant of scrapie. But regardless of the similarity of CWD and scrapie, the thousands of IHC and Elisa tests performed in Texas are useless, and Western Blot test was never used. The CWD Control Program has followed a false hypothesis based on inadequate testing methods, and in some cases, questionable agendas.
Based on the new evidence that CWD and scrapie are “indistinguishable” using Western Blotting, state agencies should follow the science, and stop all surveillance of CWD using IHC and Elisa tests until continued research using Western Blotting, shows a distinct molecular profile for both CWD and scrapie. Texas landowners, deer breeders and hunters have been harassed by the false CWD hypothesis long enough!


Why is it that every day I find something erratic about the leadership of Texas Parks and Wildlife, and the hypocrisy in support for various programs? Is it because I worked there for 33 years, and can see under the cover?

The Share a Lunker vs. the Texas Deer Breeders programs are prime examples of leadership that is hypocritical, and short on the needs of the people of Texas. The Fisheries Division loves one, and the Wildlife Division hates the other, and Law Enforcement is somewhere in between.

I was in Wildlife Division leadership for 27 years, in close relationship to headquarters operations. I know how TPWD works, and there is plenty of room for hypocrisy.

A good example of 30 years ago was the Texas Big Game Awards, which was designed after the Share a Lunker program to recognize outstanding big game harvested in Texas. The Wildlife Division leadership rejected it because it promoted trophy deer, but Chairman Chuck Nash backed it, and it became a reality. It was continually opposed by the Wildlife Division, and I had to transfer it to David Langford and the Texas Wildlife Association, which administers the awards today.

Texas fishermen and deer hunters have a keen interest in big bass and trophy whitetails. Two programs are now underway to provide the best in bass fishing and deer hunting--The Share a Lunker program to get the best genetically superior bass into the hatcheries to provide fingerlings for stocking Texas lakes--and private deer breeding facilities that provide genetically superior deer for stocking habitat to make available trophy whitetails for deer hunters The programs are identical in purpose, but Texas Parks and Wildlife Department praises the trophy bass program, and demonizes the trophy deer program! In fact, the department has done everything possible to discourage deer breeding, from permit harassment to depopulating (killing) complete deer herds where a positive of "Chronic Wasting Disease" is found. The interest of TPWD for the programs are exactly opposite, even though both programs are designed to provide the best in fishing and hunting. It is pure hypocrisy.

I was reminded of these programs when two 14-plus pound black bass were recently caught in Lake Ivey, a 30-year-old lake on the Colorado and Concho rivers in Concho, Coleman and Runnels counties. The two trophy fish got national attention and were taken to a Parks and Wildlife fish hatchery to be used for breeding to provide superior fingerlings for stocking Texas lakes. The Share a Lunker program is highly publicized and favored by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, while the department despises the deer breeder program, even though both have the same objective for deer hunters and bass fisherman.

Deer breeders have been harassed for years by two state agencies that have used a farce deer disease to make it hard for a breeder to stay in business. They have never known exactly what the disease was, but they used it to demoralize deer breeding, and sometimes kill all of the breeder's valuable deer. The disease was labeled "Chronic Wasting Disease" by the Colorado State research team that discovered it back in 1967, and publicized it as "an insidious, deadly deer disease that was contagious and probably deadly for human consumption". All of these assumptions were false, along with the finding of a new deer disease.

Now, 55 years later the USDA at Ames, Iowa has found, through Western Blot testing, that the insidious malady is nothing more than scrapie, a disease of sheep that has been known for over 300 years, but was not known to be susceptible to cervids (deer, elk, moose, etc). But the die was cast, and Texas continues testing for CWD/scrapie using old standard tests which are worthless, rather than Western Blotting. The fiasco of CWD could have been prevented had TVMDL used Western Blotting, which would have revealed the common molecular profile between CWD and scrapie, and saved $10 million and thousands of breeder deer. Oh, Well!
 
A Texas mule deer tested positive in 2012. Since then, TPWD has checked all deer breeding facilities and found CWD/scrapie using IHC and Elisa tests. The result was a depopulation (killing) of thousands of suspect deer by a wildlife agency that really didn't know what CWD was, or what affect it really had on deer. The deadly nature of CWD/scrape was a sham, and not one deer has ever been confirmed to have died from the disease. But, regardless of the science that revealed no CWD--only scrapie, TPWD and TAHC still harass deer breeders with the nonexistent CWD. Their desire to place hardships on deer breeders surpasses the science that shows the molecular profile of PrPSc being the same for CWD and scrapie. There lies the hypocrisy.

The bottom line is that trophy bass breeding has been praised and promoted over the years, while deer breeding has been demonized and discouraged. The hypocritical actions of Texas Parks and Wildlife, and the Texas Animal Health Commission are shameful and should be corrected. The differences in support of trophy bass breeding and trophy deer breeding should be curtailed immediately, and both programs should receive the best efforts of Texas Parks and Wildlife.

On a lighter note, the whitetail buck photos are superb, and some will likely appear on the cover of the TTHA Journal. We appreciate you sharing them with us, and of course, we want you to take more! Muy bueno, mi amigo! (I'm practicing for all the illegal immigrants coming across the river. I hope they don't bring something that is contagious to old wildlife biologists).

Horace Gore
Retired Wildlife Biologist
 
2) Does CWD/scrape have any effect on human health? The answer is NO. Texans annually consume about 15 million pounds of deer meat, and a loop on the human protein prevents the rogue prions of CWD/scrapie from engaging with human proteins. The summation to these two questions is “No”, and that CWD/scrapie is not a problem to cervids or human health.

I asked an F&G biologist if he'd ever heard of a coyote or a bear with CWD. Talk about brain fry....
 
Stumbled across this and thought I would share here.

______________________________________________

Was There Ever a Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD)?
Horace Gore, Wildlife Biologist
Was there ever a chronic wasting disease (CWD)? Science says “N0.” If not, then what is CWD? Researchers at USDA, Agricultural Research Service, Ames, Iowa using the Western Blot test say that CWD is “indistinguishable” from scrapie, a sheep disease that was first found in sheep in 1732, but not known in cervids (deer, elk, moose, etc).Their work shows that CWD has the same molecular profile as scrapie. In essence, “Chronic Wasting Disease” per se never has existed, and scrapie is not an insidious disease of cervids, having existed in Texas and U.S. environs for 300 years.
In a continuing study by a team headed by Dr. Justin Greenlee to determine if scrapie can be transmitted to white-tailed deer, and returned from deer to sheep, researchers learned that deer are 100 % susceptible to scrapie. The study also determined that standard IHC and Elisa tests are not adequate for differentiating CWD and scrape. This indicates that past CWD surveillance work in Texas, using these two tests, has shown a false hypothesis. The molecular profiles of CWD and scrapie (PrPSc), using the Western Blot test, show to be one in the same.
Research on CWD and scrapie goes even further. Dr. Greenlee’s USDA team has looked into the molecular profiles of scrapie in three genotypes of sheep, and compared them to CWD in mule deer. One of the sheep genotypes is “indistinguishable” from CWD. Two sheep genotypes show differences in profile, but when tested separately, they show a lot of overlap with mule deer CWD.
The USDA team believes that CWD came from sheep (scrapie) to mule deer; then to elk, and then to whitetails and other cervids. Like all research teams, they say that “Another study is needed……..” However, to date they believe, based on a combination of research factors, that CWD did come from sheep, which means that CWD is either scrapie, or a variant of scrapie.
Let’s sum it up: A transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) that was discovered 55 years ago, and called “Chronic Wasting Disease” (CWD) has now been determined to have the same molecular profile as scrapie, which has been known for 300 years. It would seem prudent then, to assume that CWD is simply scrapie, or a variant of scrapie, which has been a part of our environment for three centuries or more.
The discovery of “CWD” in 1967 was a scientific blunder! The entire scenario that Dr. Elizabeth Williams, a veterinary pathologist from Wyoming, faced at Colorado State was simply a mule deer, mixed with sheep and elk, that became ill in the research pen. She took this illness as being a new TSE, and labeled It “Chronic Wasting Disease”, when in truth the disease of the mule deer was simply scrapie.
All of the animals, according to the literature, were being fed a crude diet as part of the research. The diet, along with scrapie, may have been the cause of debilitation in the mule deer. At the time, Dr. Williams had no way of knowing that the malady was scrapie, because the sheep disease was not known in cervids, and she relied on test methods of that time that could not distinguish between the molecular profiles of scrapie and her new “CWD.” Dr. William’s discovery was a false hypothesis that has spread across the deer hunting World and academic circles, with no proof or accountability.
It seems that the research team at Colorado State made an honest mistake, brought about by an academic desire to find a new TSE—Chronic Wasting Disease. However, Dr. Williams hung a bell on her false CWD that has been followed by sheep- like state and federal authorities—most not knowing exactly why they are following the bell. However,Texas state agencies have used CWD, with no legislated authority, in their agenda to control and harass landowners, deer hunters, and deer breeders for the last 10 years.
Truth is, Texas Animal Health Commission has absolutely no authority over white-tailed or Mule deer in Texas, and Texas Parks and Wildlife has no authority to depopulate (Kill) breeder deer without a demand for such action from TAHC. So, depopulation of thousands of breeder deer over the last 10 years has been illegal.
Is CWD/scrape a deadly disease? Not hardly. Dr. James Kroll, white-tailed deer specialist, author, and past Czar of Wisconsin’s deer program puts it rather bluntly in two questions. 1) Does CWD/scrape have any effect on deer herds? The answer is NO. White-tailed deer are thriving in Texas, and expanding their range. Not a single whitetail is known to have died from CWD. 2) Does CWD/scrape have any effect on human health? The answer is NO. Texans annually consume about 15 million pounds of deer meat, and a loop on the human protein prevents the rogue prions of CWD/scrapie from engaging with human proteins. The summation to these two questions is “No”, and that CWD/scrapie is not a problem to cervids or human health.
Dr. Williams “jumped the gun,” as they say, and was probably anxious to get academic notoriety, and possibly some good grants. However, from what is known today, the "Chronic Wasting Disease" that Williams found is nothing but scrapie, and there never was a chronic wasting disease
Very interesting read. Thanks.
Makes me wonder if Covid is not actually Scrapie! Just kidding.
 
2) Does CWD/scrape have any effect on human health? The answer is NO. Texans annually consume about 15 million pounds of deer meat, and a loop on the human protein prevents the rogue prions of CWD/scrapie from engaging with human proteins. The summation to these two questions is “No”, and that CWD/scrapie is not a problem to cervids or human health.

I asked an F&G biologist if he'd ever heard of a coyote or a bear with CWD. Talk about brain fry....
It may not have any effect on human health but I wouldn’t consume anything that is obviously showing signs of sickness. That’s just me.
 
Great find. Is a link possible? Goes a long way to explain how an isolated herd of deer in Unit 14 ID ended up with "CWD". There are sheep grazing there.
I found it on Facebook, wasn't a link associated with it some one had just shared it. I did a cut and paste here.

I found the line about the diseases random nature being tied to past sheep numbers on the landscape interesting as well.
 
Thanks Jake. Interesting read and helpful. I've said for decades that CWD is related to scrapie and the solution lies in genetic resistance, as is the case with scrapie. Looks like USDA is coming around to my way of thinking. Now if we can only get the G&F folks to think more broadly than killing mature bucks in November/December. ........
 

https://veterinaryresearch.biomedcen...97-9716-42-107
 
There as many holes in that “study” as scrapie and CWD cause in the brains of sheep and cervids. And James Kroll is a paid spokesman for the privately owned deer industry.

I do believe CWD MUTATED from sheep in this CSU pens way back when. Mutation and being the same disease are two different animals.

I am a veterinarian and a rancher who is at ground zero for keeping the actual disease of CWD spreading across Texas any faster than it is already. Don’t want it on my ranch.
 
There as many holes in that “study” as scrapie and CWD cause in the brains of sheep and cervids. And James Kroll is a paid spokesman for the privately owned deer industry.

I do believe CWD MUTATED from sheep in this CSU pens way back when. Mutation and being the same disease are two different animals.

I am a veterinarian and a rancher who is at ground zero for keeping the actual disease of CWD spreading across Texas any faster than it is already. Don’t want it on my ranch.
How did it show up in an isolated herd in central Idaho? In your expert opinion?


An obvious and rational answer would be sheep.
 
Nothing great in the article. Almost every biologist, and veterinarian I know that have anything to do with CWD believe it more than likely originated from scrapie. I can remember reading on essay which believed it had probably entered deer on at least one other occasion besides the original Colorado herd. Problem is it is impossible to prove and just conjecture.

So if anyone wants to argue semantics or nomenclature go right ahead. It still doesn't take away from the threat to deer no matter what you call it.

As for the rest of the article there is a lot of useless junk there. First TPWD does have legal authority to depopulate breeding facilities. TAHC has no authority over TPWD to decide this. It has been proven in court. Saying it doesn't in an article won't change that.

The argument that there isn't proof of CWD ever killing a wild deer is idiot logic. We know if you infect a deer with CWD and put him in a controlled environment where nothing else will kill him he will get to a state which he can not feed or care for itself and it will lay down and slowly die. Now I am sure Dr. Kroll can sit there and argue that the deer died of dehydration or starvation and not CWD but that is what an idiot would say.

By the way does anyone here know what Dr. Kroll is a Dr of?

Comparing trophy bass propagation to the deer breeding industry is like saying the tomato business is just like the wheat business. These are two totally different animals that damn near have absolutely nothing in common with each other than being managed by the same department on planet earth.

If large mouth bass are found to carry CWD I apologize.
 
“Because there are no known captive or free-ranging cases of CWD in the surrounding area of the initial detection, the disease was most likely introduced accidentally through the transportation infected deer, elk, or their parts”



I dont know about that area of the country, but it Texas it gets transported by trailer taking illegal animals across state lines quite frequently. Are there any high fence him hunting preserves in that area?
 
Never mind that building right there that's used to study coronaviruses, this came from a bat in a wet market that doesn't sell bats.

It's interesting you dismiss James Kroll as a shill for the penned deer industry but refuse to acknowledge the conflict the ranching industry has via grazing leases. Maybe it's in your best interest to believe it doesn't come from domestic sheep?

A question: if I found a sheep with scrapie and gave it whichever test is being used for CWD, would I get a positive?
 
“A question: if I found a sheep with scrapie and gave it whichever test is being used for CWD, would I get a positive”

I have no idea. But just because that article said it was true doesn’t make it.

Refuse to acknowledge what??? Where are you getting this. I think public land grazing leases are being abused right and left. I graze cattle on my ranch in Texas, but have never been part of any public land grazing. I was really pissed a couple of years ago when they released hoards of cattle into prime elk country in September. Every water hole had 20-30 head until they drank them dry and just left mud.
 
Never mind that building right there that's used to study coronaviruses, this came from a bat in a wet market that doesn't sell bats.

It's interesting you dismiss James Kroll as a shill for the penned deer industry but refuse to acknowledge the conflict the ranching industry has via grazing leases. Maybe it's in your best interest to believe it doesn't come from domestic sheep?

A question: if I found a sheep with scrapie and gave it whichever test is being used for CWD, would I get a positive?
CWD DID come from sheep. It mutated. There are other theories, but for the US cases, that makes the most sense.

But there has never been a Documented case of actual scrapie infecting deer anywhere. And no, there is no grand conspiracy to hide something like this. Scrapie has been around a LONG time. And if it was transmitted to deer regularly, it would have been reported

They are both a spongiform encephalopathy. But with scrapie (or mad cow disease) if you kill all infected animals, you are done with the disease. That doesn’t happen with CWD. When it mutated, it gained the ability to survive in the environment. That is absolutely the worst thing about this disease. We have no way to eradicate it. Slaughtering all the infected animals doesn’t work

And where are all the cases of sheep with scrapie that would have then been getting it back from deer???? It hasn’t happened! Not one case. Scrapie is virtually nonexistent today.

We raised sheep on our ranch when I was a kid and I have practiced in the Texas Hill country for 30 years. I have never seen a case of Scrapie.
 
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The interesting thing about some of the literature is resistance to scrabies. From what I understand the sheep industry came up with a resistance strain of sheep to scrabies. It sounds like resistance is possible with the right alleles.

It would be interesting to know if there are healthy deer in areas where CWD/scrabies has been around for years and years to see if they have built up resistant alleles? It would be a shame if we are culling large numbers of deer that have somehow built up some sort of resistance to CWD/scrabies.

It also sounds like culling large numbers of deer isn't the answer!
 
It seems like they go from one bad idea to another. First it was kill them all: didn’t work

Now it’s kill all the older bucks. Sorry but that is not the answer either.

BTW Idaho, Covid came from a lab!
 
Idaho, you do understand that the deer industry is the one putting out these Half truths don’t you?. They want us to believe it has been here all along and it is already everywhere, which is a lie. They want us to let them haul infected deer all over the US. Are you a shill for the deer industry?
 
A question for some one much smarter than me. Since CWD/scrabies came from old world sheep, Why is it that bighorns are not highly susceptible to the disease? Logic would argue that bighorns would be even more affected than deer as they are more closely related. There has to be an answer but it is well above my pay grade.
 
In general, bighorn sheep are very susceptible to disease. Or at least it seems that way. I get lost in the myriad details about the specifics of what seems to be killing everything all the time.
 
I went to correct something I said that was wrong earlier. Scrapie and CWD can both persist in the environment for long periods.

Since one the main methods of trying to eradicate scrapie has been with resistant breeds/ genetics, we can only hope that nature does that for us with CWD in the long run.
 
Idaho, you do understand that the deer industry is the one putting out these Half truths don’t you?. They want us to believe it has been here all along and it is already everywhere, which is a lie. They want us to let them haul infected deer all over the US. Are you a shill for the deer industry?
If it's coming from sheep, which is the most likely source in the area I'm talking about, get rid of the sheep. In spite of the hunter hauled a spinal column across the country and a deer ate it argument, I'll continue to assume it's the sheep the deer share a water hole with. Just like I'll assume the coronavirus came from the lab that had coronaviruses.

Game farming native species shouldn't be allowed either.
 
From the article. "Not a single whitetail is known to have died from CWD"

That jumped out at me so I did a search and found multiple government sites that say its always fatal to deer. Crazy to see such contradictory statements.
 
From the article. "Not a single whitetail is known to have died from CWD"

That jumped out at me so I did a search and found multiple government sites that say its always fatal to deer. Crazy to see such contradictory statements.
'
Well, this deer didn't die from CWD. It was euthanized. Because it is such a slow to develop disease, many die from a bullet, a cougar, a wolf.............Even those that don't may actually starve to death, so starvation killed them, not the debilitating disease that caused them not to be able to eat?


You can twist things all around to where what you are saying is true from one sense, but.........
 
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A question for some one much smarter than me. Since CWD/scrabies came from old world sheep, Why is it that bighorns are not highly susceptible to the disease? Logic would argue that bighorns would be even more affected than deer as they are more closely related. There has to be an answer but it is well above my pay grade.
I don't know about other states, but Idaho will kill any bighorn that comes in contact with domestic sheep.
 
That is because of the m ovi bacteria that domestic sheep carry that causes pneumonia in wild sheep herds
Amongst other things. Domestic sheep carry a lot of pathogens transmissible to wild sheep. That's why it's against the law to release wild sheep south of the Snake River. If you had wild sheep in that sheep habitat, the domestic sheep would have to go. But deer farms, blah blah blah.
 

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