Caribou Gear

CWD positive meat

Your deer, elk, etc. tested positive for CWD. Does your household eat it?


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I just looked for CWD check stations online, and they were all East of me for last year. Maybe as it spreads we'll have it here but for now not mandatory. Check it in online and done.
 
I just looked for CWD check stations online, and they were all East of me for last year. Maybe as it spreads we'll have it here but for now not mandatory. Check it in online and done.
You will soon enough, enjoy decent deer numbers until that gets underway.
 
To the original question, without having my deer tested I wouldn't have any idea otherwise besides odd behavior. So the meat would all go in the freezer to be eaten as usual. IF we get mandatory testing and one was positive it would be a tough call. We eat a lot of venison and to have one not get processed would be tough. Our "meat and potatoes" gun season is so short you couldn't make up the loss of that deer.
 
I have all my cervids tested and have not gotten a positive yet. When I do get one, I will have no problem discarding the whole thing. Not worth it to me.
 
I've definitely eaten it. My first deer had CWD and we ate it, and Ive killed many more in SE Wyoming that went untested. But I get all my deer tested now. And if they test positive, I have no problem taking them to the landfill. I haven't had to do that yet because I haven't killed a deer other than a non cwd whitetail in about 6 years, but I won't hesitate to chuck one if it comes down to it. I'll have to stop being picky about not killing young bucks and capitalize on one of the few deer I actually find that I want to kill before it becomes an issue anyways.

I don't see discarding a CWD deer as a waste or something to be ashamed of. If you did your job, you gave the animal a much better death than its alternative, AND you had every intention of using the meat if it wasn't infected. Its not like your looking for an excuse to kill a deer and not take the meat, that would be another story. You also stopped that animal from continuing to shed prions, for what that's worth.
 
This has come up in various threads, but I didn't see a thread dedicated to the question specifically. FL didn't have the same CWD problems that TN does so it is something that has come up in mind recently. To be honest, I'm not 100% right now. My gut reaction is that I'd label it and just eat it myself without feeding it to my kids or wife.
Enter current day: COVID-19 found antibodies in a testing for other biological aspects of wild deer and happened to test for covid-19 and 40% were found positive.
Would you eat it? I don't believe I would... in fact hell no! Guess if it's dead no need to stay 6' away and have an N95 mask on.

However same question applies with your survey...

Edit: My phone not only tries to fix my spelling, it changes my word choice. I'm doomed.
Post corrected.
 
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I've probably eaten it before, but won't do it again. It doesn't appear harmful to people at this time, but the biologists are worried that, if it is eaten regularly, a mutation will eventually cross over to humans.
 
Gastro Gnome - Eat Better Wherever

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