Posted By Chuckwagon Sam on 12/30/2007 2:25 PM
Watched a show on the Outdoor channel the other day.  Larry Weishuhn, famed hunter and biologist, was debating as to whether CWD is as big a problem as it's being made out to be. He suggested that CWD has always been here and deer always have had it . He opined that deer in wild usally do not live long enough to show signs of it, or when they do they fall prey to preators. It wasn't till deer and elk kept in pens and able to live longer were found to have it, that testing showed it in wild herds. He felt that mass extermination was unnecessary and really won't change much. I tend to agree. When It first was discovered we were going to have entire deer herds in areas wiped out. I hunt in the Pine Ridge area of Nebraska and in 2002  they gave out free doe tags for that year and several after so they could check for CWD. They found several deer with it. This year we had to buy a doe tag. They still check if you want, but the herd didn't die off and we had one of our best years yet. 6 hunters taking 9 bucks and 6 does. The first day  I saw over 30 deer with 8 being bucks. CWD, even though present in the herd certainly didn't kill it off.