There is so much wrong with the current approach to CWD I have a hard time knowing where to start.
As mentioned CPW has dicked around with the idea of killing it out for close to 30 years. In 1997 I worked for the CPW in the Ft. Collins Field Office, I was part of the team who removed the lymph nodes from thousands of deer. As mentioned at the time, they were intent on killing the deer out in the area. Theory was, if the deer go away the disease will go away. It has not proven to really work that way. From my understanding of the efforts in FT. Collins, the killing of every deer they could temporarily reduced infection rates, but as the herd grew the rates ticked up and eventually are at or very near the same levels.
The one thing that occurred for certain is that the deer hunting was destroyed. The quality of bucks were destroyed. It took the area nearly 15 years to resemble anything like the hunting and opportunity prior to the CPW allowing people to shoot 4 does and a buck each year in the unit.
Fast forward to the recent Colorado CWD plan. NW Colorado had pockets (this is what really pisses me off) small pockets where mature bucks were testing positive at high rates. The latest plan was to kill all the mature bucks. They did not hide that fact. They were pretty open. The issue is this, the Mature bucks were testing high infection rates but none of other animals. Further making things worse they literally had that showed it was no just mature bucks, but specifically but in a couple certain drainages. I remember seeing a map that indicated the areas. So instead of doing a targeted removal of mature bucks in an identified hot spot area they decided that it was much better to kill off mature bucks not only unit wide but pretty regionally.
The strange part and non of them could ever answer... Colorado Mule Deer Unit 22 is a major winter range for all the areas where the "CWD" hot spots occur. It also had some of the highest population concentrations and at one point not long ago had some of the highest Buck to Doe ratios in the state and also boasted one of the oldest age classes for buck in the state. During this time, there was a massive deer study in 22. I worked with it for several years. Long story short, the CWD infection rate in 22 never reached above 3% and most years in the study it was below 2%. No one could answer the one question... Why does Unit 22 show almost no infection rate with an older buck population, a higher concentration of deer and the fact that deer from many areas winter and comingle with deer from several herds.
Long story short, the tag allocations in NW Colorado went through the roof. The seasons are now shifted later, and mule deer hunting and trophy quality are absolutely destroyed.
I am a hard no on the whole kill all the mature bucks issue. It has not proven to provide any relief at all in the long run. It has proven to destroy hunting for an entire generation it has proved that the managers are willing to kill 10+ years of hunting and get no real net results.
I will try hard to hit the meetings in the Big Horn area.. I love how they time these meeting right with the start of hunting seasons...