We were allowed unlimited doe tags in the "eradication zone" for several years. That area is a semi urban, suburban mix of small farms, rural homes, and very steep terrain. Lots of room for deer to go to avoid hunting pressure.
All that seemed to accomplish was to concentrate deer in low pressure. There was no way that the deer in that area would ever be "eradicated".

In AR, it was not just the mortality caused by hunting, it was also additive mortality caused by deer literally dying of cwd. Fawn recruitment could not keep up with both hunter harvest and cwd mortality

This^^^ is currently the real threat created by CWD. In areas that continue to increase in CWD prevalence the loss to CWD will increase. With common deer mortality caused by predation, road-kills, other diseases (EHD), and hunters, in addition to increasing CWD losses....populations in some areas will not be able to maintain growth and will even struggle to hold at their current levels.

When this happens, the first mortality cause that will be eliminated to slow the population decline is the only one that can actually be eliminated.....legal hunting...starting with no antlerless harvests and possibly shortened seasons.

If you're losing blood, but you can't stop what's making the cuts, then your only option is to try and stop the bleeding.

It has been proven that increased CWD losses will put pressure on deer recruitment (NW Arkansas study.) It is a slow progression but it will happen.

I feel consuming untested venison is much less of a risk than what our deer populations are facing in the long term with large areas of potential population declines.

If you knowingly consume/feed your family or friends a KNOWN positive deer...well that's just STUPID.

I didn't read all the thread pages, so please explain to me what Georgia is studying on the topic and what's the plan going forward?

Swamp Wolf, what do you think your DNR should be doing?

I still do not understand the logic.

I do want to protect the deer herd. Absolutely!! But CWD is found in the plants they consume. This being a method of transmission.

Apparently deer can transmit from deer to deer through nose contact, I guess?

Prions survive 1,000F. Think about that. An average grill gets to about 500F. Imagine double that and the prions still survive.

It is in the wild food they eat. We can't stop that.

We can stop nose contact if we kill ALL of them.

As far as limits and mortality go, just do a population survey and adjust the season and limits to the population. Talking about CWD in cervids only helps the anti crowd. The antis will have fantastic propaganda.

"Don't eat the meat. It could kill you!"
"A large majority of the population is infected. Best to leave them alone."
"It's a horrible and painful brain disease and you can catch it and DIE!"
"See what happens when hunters transplant deer?"

This will do nothing to help recruit new hunters.

Just quietly adjust the seasons and limits and let the public complain. If they ask tell them the truth. There is nothing that can be done about this. Keeping talking about it will not benefit the deer population or hunting deer in general.

Nothing good will come from this and lots of tax payer money, your money, is being wasted due to lack of participation. Testing is NOT free. We pay for it through taxes. Nothing is free from the government.

Again, I get the concern. But until they find an effective way to kill prions, the cause of CWD, BSE, CJD and scrapie, tax money and time will continue to be wasted. Find the cure, not how many have it.

But if you do find a cure, how will it be administered? No way you can get all of them. Massive undertaking requiring massive amounts of money.

One more time. Just quietly adjust the seasons and limits. Stop talking about it. It is not beneficial.

Even though prions can be found in plants and continue to be present for years in the soil, the likelihood of transmission from ingestion of plants is on the low end. The likelihood of transfer of prions to deer from infected carcass parts such as bones is also in the lower end of the chance scale. Nearly every state has enacted carcass transport restrictions because there is a chance of transmission.

The PRIMARY & HIGHEST CHANCE for transmission and spread is deer to deer contact. Bucks cover more ground, especially in the fall, therefore they appear to be the most likely to spread CWD. They group up in the summer with other bucks and lick and groom each other daily. Does generally have a smaller home range and are in tight family units. Georgia DNR is attempting to get hunters to pick out adult does from different family units for harvest and testing...to help determine prevalence. The presence of a higher % of positive does...the longer CWD has been present in that area. A single buck or two....hard to know where he's been or came from. Deer herd dynamics 101.

DNR agencies CANNOT change anything related to laws and regulations "quietly." There is a legislative and/or administrative process that must be followed. The public wants to and will know.

In AR, it was not just the mortality caused by hunting, it was also additive mortality caused by deer literally dying of cwd. Fawn recruitment could not keep up with both hunter harvest and cwd mortality

The southern states, which are newer to the cwd game than a lot of the more northern states, in my opinion tend to react to news of cwd in a less passive manner than did the northern states. Typically no, or reduced targeting and sharpshooting, and still allowing feeders. My county just came under cwd regs. There are transportation restrictions, did away with apr, and allowing baiting only from Sep 1 to end of Dec. Did not change seasons or bag limits. No mandatory testing. There are freezers available for drop off. Most hunters here did not test in my county

I don't follow the Michigan CWD saga that closely so the following numbers might not be perfect but it's what comes to mind for here.

We have been doing some version of testing/surveillance for a long time. I'd guess maybe 20-25 years. I seem to recall it starting with TB surveillance and then sorta morphing into CWD by the mid 2000s timeframe. However, the first CWD positive wasnt found until about a decade ago. Pretty sure it was 2015 or 2016 as it took place not that far away from me and at the time we all wondered what it meant. Seems to me that testing has been all over the place since then. I remember a brief period when we were to get everything tested and now it think the DNR does it on more of a random/rotating sample by county.

I recall reading some newsletter from DNR this summer that CWD has been found in around 20 counties over last few years primarily in wild herd but also recently in captive cervids. It seems to be primarily in the southern ag zone where there are unbelievably high deer concentrations. But the number of total positives isnt that great---maybe 400 or something like that. And only one county had a substantial number of those positives. For the most part it seems like the southern herd across a fairly large chunk of ground has some CWD but its not impacting a high percentage of the herd. Maybe theres more out there that the testing doesnt reach but this herd is huge with the sides of the roads littered with dead deer year round. Its hard to picture the herd being wiped out by CWD in combination with too much hunting pressure. Years/decades of begging people to kill does hasnt made any impact in the numbers. So far the only reliable way to see the herd decrease across the southern part of the state is for there to be dry enough conditions that EHD locally wipes out the deer. If the herd was drastically impacted by CWD there would be lots of upset hunters. BUT a good portion of the folks that make a living in agriculture and end up feeding those long legged vermin in the southern part of the state also have fairly strong lobbyists at the state capital and might feel differently.