PA Bowhunters....

[RedShaft]

I live right in the heart of the CWD area. Notice I always complain about deer numbers.... But I don't believe they are dying from CWD. Is all the tags and herd reduction. They gave an extra 14,000 tags in my area on top of the normal doe tags for CWD erradication purposes.

This is 4a. I went to te seminars given in my area by the game commission and head of pa aggreculture., it's nothing new. Been around for long time I belive first was in Colorado. They said the disease stays in the ground for up to 15 years. It's passed my liquids, saliva, pee, poop. That sort of thing.
 Yeah your correct, the only way to identify is to kill the animal n check, brain, spinal cord, lymphnodes. Each deer processor here had to go through classes to be able to butcher deer. So it's hard to find a butcher now if you don't do you own. You are not to cut through the spine. Debone the deer. The butchers take samples from deer to give to the game commission. They also have deer dumpster here on state game lands to put carcasses in. If not you are required to put them in heavy duty trash bags n give to the the garbage man.
I stay away from neck meat now as that's where the glands are located. It is also more prevelant in older deer and esp in older bucks.
We are no longer allowed to use urine based scents here in CWD area.
 You are not allowed to removed deer from the CWD area. So no traveling with your buck in your truck anymore have to keep it in the CWD area. Only boned out meat can be removed.
Stay way from eating organs. ESP liver. The deer infected with CWD will most definaty die. It's a brain problem. Brain will look something like a sponge with holes in it. Have to clean all your tools and utensils with bleach after processing. Cook meat throughly.
I belive CWD is here to stay and will only spread. This is our second season with CWD

[RedShaft]

They also have a very interesting study. On deer migration and a that kinda stuff. The path they take moving up from the south through Maryland through 4a areas in pa and will be pushing north east. So you north east guys.. Your next to see it.

[SCS]

Well, I guess if CWD becomes too common or too much of a concern, we'll just stick with shooting the foam deer instead. They may not taste as good, but they are a lot of fun to "hunt", especially with a good "hunting party".

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Steve

[monkeyball]

I'm with you there Steve!


                                     Good Shooting,
                                                      Craig

[1flyfish]

I to would not be comfortable consuming any deer that did not seem healthy.Seems ashame that the commercialization of farm raised deer and the trading, buying and transferring of these deer where not more regulated from the DCNR and not letting the game commision be more control.Guess we all have to live with it now.

[RedShaft]

Originally posted by 1flyfish:
I to would not be comfortable consuming any deer that did not seem healthy.Seems ashame that the commercialization of farm raised deer and the trading, buying and transferring of these deer where not more regulated from the DCNR and not letting the game commision be more control.Guess we all have to live with it now.

It is regulated. My buddy raises deer. It is regulated like any livestock. By the pa agriculture. You have to have licenses, permits and immunization so on.  There are more deer farms in pennsylvania than any other state In the US. They are everywhere you just don't reLize it. Same with hunting preserves. All over pa.  The deer that was discovered to have CWD originally  bringing on the craze was a wild deer.  

Everyone like to blame the farms. I let you in on some inside info on what happened. And on the escaped pen deer that everyone was so scared about.  Let me explaine.

Everytime a pen deer dies. They cut its head off and send it to pen state for testing. They are to anyhow. Well adeer was found to have CWD. So everyone they did buisness with or sold deer to was put under quarantine. Until things were figured out. Every deer that was from or came in contact with that heard was killed and heads cutoff for testing. But here is where it went wrong. The pa game commission went to the orginal place it came from and entered the pen and went crazy shooting all the deer inside.(pa agriculture should have taken care of killing the deer) Most of you do not know but pen raised deer are not as people friendly as you would think. They freaked out. With the shooting and do what they do and that's go crazy smashing into the fence. In all the commotion a deer escaped... They should not have acted as they did. The actions of the game commission cased the deer to  escape. They could have use a differant approach to dispatch the fenced deer.  This never would have happened. This is what you seen on the news Was about the escape deer starting the painc of the CWD spreading to the WILD deer. You didn't hear about that in the news. The first CWD deer was a wild deer found here in Blair county pa in the wild. They also test road killed deer in the area as well.

[RedShaft]

http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=1253813&mode=2

[monkeyball]

RedShaft,
               Thank you for all your input.

                                               Good Shooting,
                                                             Craig

[RedShaft]

Just want to inform. I don't think its a thing to get caught up in. But there some info if it gets to your areas. We here have been in the heart of it. And it really seem those around here are not that concerned about it. More about low deer numbers than the CWD.