Quote Originally Posted by streaker69 View Post
Thank you, makes sense. Now, what's the solution? Should those scent products, that are effectively bait, be banned? If it's endangering large populations it would make sense. IMO, it isn't very sporting to be using "bait" to begin with.
This is one of those situations where the regulatory agency and the legislature need to not fuck around and take the steps necessary to prevent the spread of CWD. If it means that deer urine industry takes a hit, so be it. Economically that is a far more acceptable outcome than having the entire industry surrounding hunting in PA take a hit. It will also push the deer urine industry to work with researchers to come up with a test for prions in order to certify their product safe for use.

We haven't yet had a documented case of a human comtracting CWD from consuming or butchering a deer or elk, but it is only a matter of time. It has happened with BSE (mad cow) and, based on their mechanism of infection, there is no logical reason NOT to expect it with CWD. We already have BSE, CJD, and Kuru as human prion diseases. It isn't unrealistic to expect CWD to behave similarly.

And quite frankly, prions are scary as fuck! They make pathogenic viruses look like anemic weaklings. Most viruses die very quickly outside of a host. Prions can take being frozen, dried out, and only stop being pathogenic when the proteins are denatured by high heat. Unlike viruses, they can't die, because they aren't alive. They can even be taken up by plants and passed along to grazers who eat the plants.

Half measures for something like this won't work. A population that is infected needs to be destroyed and burned like Europe did with several MILLION cattle suspected of having BSE. Because prion disease is scary like rabies. By the time that symptoms show up, it's past being too late.