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This Letter to the Editor was in the Jonesboro Sun this morning. I'm guessing it was posted in papers all over the State.
CWD Letter to the Editor
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There's an article in the Jonesboro Sun this morning calling for the eradication of the Arkansas elk herd, as according to the article, the elk are exotic animals, since they are Rocky Mountain Elk, which is not the species of elk native to Arkansas. And, the Arkansas Game & Fish are liable for this disaster because they violated their own policies and mandates by bring exotics into the State.
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Here's a link to the article if anybody wants to read it.
http://www.jonesborosun.com/outdoors/story.php?ID=80602
http://www.jonesborosun.com/outdoors/story.php?ID=80602
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Ridiculous
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What's sad is they aren't looking for the "source" but looking for more animals with the disease. We have to find the source not more animals with the disease
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So, how are you going to find the source?
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There is a source , where we may never know but its rather obvious they out to kill every deer and elk in a 5 mile radius of the lone source which if you read Wisconsons CWD papers they did the same and later found it was like parvo that it was in the ground and no REAL way to get rid of it
X2, but I have to wonder one of their secret concerns was CWD from our now "native" elk somehow, or private importations of elk, or elk/deer contaminated-part importation, due to elk's possible hyper-sensitivity to acquiring the disease, and that is why they refused to expand the elk herd beyond a pet/tourist project. If they had concerns, and I'm just speculating and spitting ideas here, that would show some foreseeability/liability.
According to the one above posted theory of liability regarding "exotics", I guess the majority of our bears should be eradicated as well, since they are an "exotic" subspecies of bear, and not our native Louisiana Black Bears of S/SE Arkansas.
But they can at least try what they are going to do. Might work, might not. But got to try something and maybe prevent or at least slow it down from getting in the ground on my place in east central Arkansas. Or a mans place in southwest or southeast Arkansas and maybe northeast Arkansas or any other place. Can see if you have studied this stuff much like a few of us have, the places that have sat back and took the wait and see approach have not faired real well.
I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle of the doom and gloom prophesy many will expound and that which was brought forth in the above letter. It is a very slow acting disease - and Arkansans may not see extremely detrimental effects for decades. I would like to hear some straight forward, honest comments from folks who live at the epicenter in Wisconsin and those who live in the CWD counties in Illinois. Both of their CWD started the same time and each state has chosen a different path. In Wisconsin - supposedly, up to 40% of the bucks in the initial area now test positive. In Illinois - it is less than 5%. The big question to me is, how bad is the deer hunting now in Wisconsin where the disease was first detected - where they now have just a monitoring program - are they seeing CWD related declines in the quantity or quality of their deer. And in Illinois - has the designed herd reduction resulted in lowering the quality and quantity of the hunting to a point that it is worse than what the hunting is in Wisc? 1/4 of KS, a 1/3 of CO and NE, and 1/2 of Wyoming have CWD - yet people are clamoring to go out to those states and hunt. Guy across the road from me has a high fence captive elk herd - I cringe every time I call the G&F to pick up a sick deer. So far, it has been something else - I am keeping my fingers crossed.
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The fact is that we will never know the source. You can speculate till the cows come home but the reality is that Pandora's box has been opened. Now the AGFC has to decide between a bunch of bad, unpopular decisions. I'm glad that I'm not in their shoes.
The eastern lack bear is the native Arkansas Black bear
sus americanus americanus Eastern black bear Eastern Montana to the Atlantic coast, from Alaska south and east through Canada to the Atlantic and south to Texas. Thought to be increasing in some regions. Common to Eastern Canada and U.S. wherever suitabble habitat is found. A large-bodied subspecies, almost all specimens have black fur. May very rarely sport a white blaze on chest
Thanks, I thought our original bears were mostly of the Louisiana Black Bear subspecies. I guess that was only the original bears in our delta and southern lowlands.
I'd still have to strongly disagree with their last two sentences. Brown color phase, cinnamon color phase, and white chest patches are far from rare or even uncommon here; I think it occurs in up to 25% of our bears (at least in the N/NW half of the state).
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While obvious that captive penned deer could be tested and eradicated to prevent the spread. Because it is in a wild population I think they should let it run it's course rather than trying to decimate all deer in an area. They'll never get them all anyway.
Some solutions that might help with the spread would be to ban feeding and putting out minerals, So the deer don't all have their nose in the same dirt.
Some solutions that might help with the spread would be to ban feeding and putting out minerals, So the deer don't all have their nose in the same dirt.
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Well I hope they don't kill all the elk in AR. Next year was gonna be my year to draw a tag, I just know it.....
everyone may get an elk tag next year.:up:
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On another note about CWD,
How many of us know of or am one of the many hunters who have gone to say Colorado on an elk hunt and taken an elk ? did you eat it ? are you/were you aware of CWD in their herd when you took said elk?
Why I'm asking is they say don't eat the meat but I have yet to talk to anyone that threw away their elk meat because of it
How many of us know of or am one of the many hunters who have gone to say Colorado on an elk hunt and taken an elk ? did you eat it ? are you/were you aware of CWD in their herd when you took said elk?
Why I'm asking is they say don't eat the meat but I have yet to talk to anyone that threw away their elk meat because of it
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that's a great point I've eaten a few elk and mule deer from CO. I think they are overreacting on that issue as well
I don't know anyone whose had their CO, etc., elk tested before importation or consumption, and I just recently saw an elk skull (I'm pretty sure it was an elk skull, it's likely, but I can't confirm 100%) laying on the ground somewhere near a trash area.
There's no telling how many parts of infected elk have been left exposed and available to our local carriers of the disease such as scavengers who may spread and even basically host the disease around for many miles after hunter's elk that were infected where imported into the state. Over the years and thousands of imported, harvested elk from out of state, some of them WERE infected, and we may have prions in the soil in many areas. That's one of the several reasons I viewed our discovery of CWD as inevitable.
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