Use wolves to stop CWD?

[Oak]

Hmm, interesting theories presented here. Maybe the feed program at Jackson will live on after all!

Officials fighting CWD ponder a natural partner: wolves
By Theo Stein
Denver Post Environment Writer

The spread of chronic wasting disease toward Yellowstone's famed game herds alarms wildlife lovers, but two top researchers think biologists will discover a powerful ally in an old frontier villain.

The wolf.

Wildlife managers have never controlled a major outbreak of chronic wasting disease, a fatal neurologic malady of deer and elk first discovered in a captive Colorado mule deer herd in 1967.

No one knows for sure if wolves would target CWD-infected deer and elk, but wolves' uncanny ability to spot vulnerable animals may make them the best natural control for the disease, researchers say.

Full story here

Oak

 

[Ten Bears]

Wasn't that very same theory speculated here about a year ago?????

 

[BHR]

Can wolves that eat CWD infected animals become infected themselves? Might be a good way to keep the wolves in check.

 

[BuzzH]

Paul, its never happened yet. The key word may be "yet".

I talked with a Wyoming biologist recently who has worked a lot with CWD and he was convinced it couldnt jump species like that...elk to wolf. Apparently there is ongoing studies trying to verify that.

 

[BHR]

Buzz,

I'm guessing this Wyo Bio would probably pass on a serving of CWD infected elk brain. Would humans have differnt resistances than wolves to the same meal? How about scavengers like ravens, any chance they might get infected?

Paul

 

[feclnogn]

One of the theories on prions is that they live in the ground and can survive temperatures of up to 1000 degrees, so if you introduce wolves to kill the infected animals and the prions exist in the soil how do you keep other elk and deer from being infected?? Maybe introduce some sort of worm that will eat the prions

This sounds like another lame excuse to shove wolves down our throat.

 

[Oak]

I think there's a lot less chance of a healthy animal contracting CWD from prions in the ground than there is of one getting it from contact with an infected animal. The prions don't exist everywhere in the ground. But both of our opinions are just that: opinions.

Wanna come up here and help thin the elk herd? Hunters are not getting the job done now. Maybe they need help from the big bad wolf.

Oak

 

[Ten Bears]

Why wouldn't wolves get infected from eating diseased animals??? prions are <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> A prion has been defined as "small proteinaceous infectious particles which resist inactivation by procedures that modify nucleic acids". <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> http://www-micro.msb.le.ac.uk/3035/prions.html