Chronic Waste Disease
Well lately we as a nation have been quite concerned of international terrorists. Let Discuss a different type of international terrorist, shall we. There are several Biological issues, which confront us. Many of us are not aware of Chronic Waste Disease. This is an issue, which really concerns the cattle ranchers. Deer often carry this and it can transfer species, it is as alarming as Mad Cow Disease. Chronic Waste disease has turned up in South Dakota, Nebraska, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Montana. It is very serious. You may wish to check out this page so you can keep up with this discussion, if you have no current knowledge of this. It happens in Elk and Deer.
CWD is a scary thing because some believe it can affect our Beef food supply. In Canada there is a lot more information and ELK used in livestock as well as free ranging have been discovered with it. A few years back some Texas hunters who may have contracted it from eating a deer they killed while hunting all died. Obviously hunters now know of this and have been warned as well by the USDA
[http://www.dnr.state.co.us/wildlife/hunt/HunterEducation/chronic.htm]
Many actions have thus recently been taken to try and control this. Is it working? So far it is not an epidemic, however they are keeping a close eye on it. Many farmers are worried and hunters to and so should you and I, here is a message board to see the talk currently about this situation, it is a little scary quite frankly;
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/seedsofchange/messages/3506
In Milwaukee they are taking no chances, they cannot afford to said one state Senator. Considering killing all the deer.
[http://www.jsonline.com/news/State/apr02/38120.asp]
In Illinois and Wisconsin same thing, it is definitely worrisome; The Department of Natural Resources moved quickly to cut off any Elk or Deer meat to be imported to their states;
[http://dnr.state.il.us/pubaffairs/2002/April/cwd041902.htm]
They are very concerned about the white tail deer there and migrating from nearby states which have the problem. I did personally talk to one rancher south of Bismarck, North Dakota who did not want to take any chances at all. We talked about terrorism, we talked about water supply, hell we talked about all the old missile silos and the cold war, nothing bothered this guy, but on the subject of Chronic Waste Disease he said it was a concern. What is chronic waste disease? It is a disease, actually a virus which is similar to the Human Feared human variant Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease, although it is not the same as Ebola which kills you faster it is a virus too and would appear to be similar in symptoms, hosted characteristics and effect and spreading across the immune system. It literally eats away at the animal? Can it kill people; we think it already has. If it gets into our cattle we are about as screwed as all of Europe during the slaughter of cows and livestock when they caught the mad cow disease and moved to stamp it out. Here is some more in depth information on how deer and elk might give it to cattle. By eating the same bushes and grass or food. Also in their systems, urine and into the water supply. Serious stuff, keep yourself informed and inform others. Think on this.