🦌PGC pushes out warning over Zombie Deer Disease in Pa.

[GOYABEAN]

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You know the thing 💀

The Pennsylvania Game Commission urges hunters in Disease Management Areas to have their deer tested for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) and to consider participating in a new extended antlerless deer rifle season.

Jeannine Fleegle, wildlife biologist in the deer and elk section of the Game Commission, spoke about deer and CWD Wednesday during the Somerset County Sportsmen’s League Banquet in Berlin.

One of the challenges facing the deer population since 2012 in Pennsylvania is CWD. It is a fatal neurological brain disease in animals like deer, elk and moose.

“It’s contagious, there’s no cure, there’s no immunity,” she said. The deer pass the disease prions through liquids including saliva, blood, urine and their milk when nursing fawns.

“The issue with Chronic Wasting Disease is its incredibly long incubation period. An animal can have it for over a year before they even look sick, but during that entire time they are shedding the prion,” Fleegle said, which is a protein that causes the disease.

With the disease affecting the brain of deer, the deer can die from other causes because deer can lose their wariness of danger.

“It’s not an upfront, in-your-face disease,” she said. The deer may not be thinking like a normal deer and die from predation, hunters and motor vehicle collisions.

“It’s a brain disease. So while they may not look sick, they are making poor decisions,” she said.

Advice to the public regarding Zombie Deer Disease
Fleegle urges the public to report sightings of deer that don’t appear to be healthy to the agency by calling 833-PGC-HUNT.

She encourages hunters in Disease Management Areas to get their deer tested for CWD. It’s a free service to hunters who place their deer heads in the Game Commission’s collection bins. A list of the locations is available on the agency’s CWD webpage.

During rifle season when the most deer are shot, it can take about two weeks for the hunter to receive the results. It takes less time during other hunting seasons like archery.

While the agency isn’t aware of anyone becoming ill from eating a deer that tested positive for CWD, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends not eating a deer that tested positive.

The agency has been increasing the number of antlerless deer licenses and Deer Management Assistance Program tags (DMAP) in disease management areas in an attempt to reduce the spread of the disease.

Fleegle said hunters need to help by shooting more antlerless deer to help manage the disease.

“We need to act because I don’t think we acted swiftly enough when we first found the disease and I think we are paying for it today, unfortunately,” she said about the disease spreading to new parts of the commonwealth, most recently it was discovered in Armstrong County. “It continues to creep ever so slowly westward as well as eastward.”

The agency is relying on hunters to help with the CWD research and to manage the size of the deer population.

“When you are out there and you harvest an animal, please get it tested and please keep hunting. Because the only way we have a way to maybe control this disease is to remove those animals that are infected and keep the deer herd at a reasonable level,” Fleegle said.

The agency is relying on hunters to help with the CWD research and to manage the size of the deer population.

To help meet the management goals the Game Commission created a new extended rifle season for antlerless deer which is Jan. 2-20 in Wildlife Manage Units 4A, 4D and 5A.

“We have not seen a change in the population in those areas so we are giving hunters more time to use the tags that they already have available to them,” she said.

https://www.goerie.com/story/sports/...t/75307577007/

[fingers80002]

Ain't skeert........

[Sandcut]

This shit scares me more than tick-borne diseases.

[Daycrawler]

What happens to bear if they eat a deer killed by CWD? What happens to a human who eats the bear?

[Emptymag]

What happens to bear if they eat a deer killed by CWD? What happens to a human who eats the bear?

It changes the question: Does a human shit in the woods?

[GOYABEAN]

What happens to bear if they eat a deer killed by CWD? What happens to a human who eats the bear?

CDC say Bear could become infected? As for human being infected from eating tainted meat I wouldn't play with those odds!

Deer Parapoxvirus has been reported in red deer in New Zealand, but human infections have occurred in the United States. The virus is related to the orf virus, which affects sheep and goats, and the pseudocowpox virus, which affects cattle. The deer parapoxvirus causes scabby, crusty lesions on the muzzle, lips, face, ears, neck and antlers of affected deer.

There have been two confirmed cases of deer parapoxvirus infection in humans in the U.S., both of whom were deer hunters on the East Coast of the U.S. Both patients had nicked their fingers while dressing the deer carcasses and later developed pox lesions (scabby crusts) on their hands. One hunter also developed swollen lymph nodes. Both hunters reported that the deer had not shown any signs of illness at the time they were dressed.

The CDC continues to investigate deer parapoxvirus cases in the U.S. More information will be provided as it is obtained.

https://www.avma.org/resources/publi...utions-hunters

[JenniferG]

An mRNA vaccine is needed for this.