CWD Found in VA

Antler333 said:

As Autry has shown in the CWD Alliance timeline. CWD, as it is current know, has been around for over 40 years.



While there certainly could be spontaneous CWD, just like there is spontaneous CJD in humans, the presence of that time line suggests, but does not confirm, that CWD in its current form CAN be transmitted as well.



Unfortunately, the current data suggests that the form of CWD found in all these new areas "appears" to be the same or a similar strain to that found in Colorado originally, and since Co State University and the CO Div of Wildlife shipped live animals and diseased tissue to several places around the country, many of those occurances can be explained by sloppy govt handling of infected animals or tissues. Certainly WI can be explained that way.



Also, since wild shot carcasses have been harvested from NE Colorado for decades and certainly some of those heads and bones and maybe guts and things have ended up dumped around the country, then CWD may have been planted in literally hundreds of areas. If those carcasses were postive for CWD, then that area of any state could be a point source for CWD. the NY occurances seem to have come from a taxidemist that had worked on CO shot animals. INsect transmisson can explain the New Mexico occurances.



Now, is CWD always fatal. Well, YES if you consider that to test a brain you have to kill the animal! But is it fatal if infected, I am not so sure. ONLY if the disease agent reaches the nervous system and hence the brain, is it fatal. I personally beleive that you can surpress the disease with antibiotics, and in fact some animals are seemingly immune to it. (studies of genetic L vs M type elk, for example). If animals can be immune and if antibiotics suppress the disease, then this worrisome prion theory is potentially BUNK! The animals seem to react to it the same way they do to other diseases, just they are more diffiult to diagnose.



CWD has no effect on any other wildlife other than the Deer species. Scrapie, also a TSE disease can affect sheep and goats both wild and domestic. BSE so far has been found in beef and I beleive a musk ox or another kind of bovine. Id have to check on that one.



the worry is (hence the eratification efforts) is that it is a cousin of Mad Cow disease which caused a deaded brain disease in humans (about 200 people out of what? 100 million that had eaten the meat of ~100,000 infect beefs). Not exactly a major disease, JUST a deadful one.



As our current chief of staff at the Whitehouse has said. You never want to let a good crisis go to waste. FREE MONEY FOR ALL GOVT AGENCIES that work on it!

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Hello all, just thought I'd toss in my two cents worth since I work with CWD.

As far as we know CWD is fatal 100% of the time- the disease can sometimes be slowed with antibiotics but this is because most deaths that are attributed to CWD are, in fact, caused by secondary infections (usually aspiration pneumonia). If the disease is allowed to progress, even with plenty of antibiotics, it will eventually cause the death of the animal as the nervous system becomes more and more damaged- we have yet to see an animal which tested positive and did not eventually die of CWD or related complications. It is possible that, at some time in the future, there may be some way to treat CWD but for now there are no viable treatment options (but we're working on a few). We do have live animal tests for both deer and elk so the test is no longer fatal. As for the genetic immunity, the ML vs MM genotype in elk is thought to have some effect on the disease but it does not give them immunity. They may be somewhat more resistant but they are not completely immune (I've personally observed an elk of the resistant genotype die from CWD). I do agree that CWD has probably been around a lot longer than we've known about it and that the only reason it seems to be spreading is that we know where to look for it now.

Truby,

If we have a live animal test, why doesn't the USDA recognize it as a method to ensure a herd of captive deer are CWD free? Is it possible that this test is as accurate as the TB screening test? Enlighten us on this live test.

Scott,

There is a tonsillar biopsy test for deer and a rectal biopsy test for elk. The tests appear to be nearly as accurate as post-mortem testing. As of yet they have not been approved as "official" tests by the USDA but both are being used in research and we are continuing to evaluate them at every opportunity. Hopefully, they will be approved sometime soon. We are also working on several other detection methods which might make collecting samples significantly easier and more user-friendly but those are still in the very early testing and development stages whereas the the tonsil/rectal biopsies have been pretty much validated.

Trudy,



I’ve sat by quietly long enough, nothing personal but………….



IT ALWAYS SEEMS THAT WHEN WE DEAL WITH CWD, TRUE STATISTICS ARE THROWN OUT THE WINDOW!



Why is it that when these positive reports come out, they never include the clinical symptoms of the animal? Disease management 101 will tell you that the clinical symptoms of the animal are always vital in determining if the animal was truly inflicted by some ailment. Why are the majority of positive CWD cases from perfectly healthy animals? Was this latest positive buck healthy? (I suspect it was a hunter harvest and he was). When these isolated cases occur on healthy animals with all other testing showing no signs, I am immediately concerned and suspect for the procedures and methods used. I am also very suspect of the statement that the disease is always fatal or that a positive test indicates an active disease. I hope a second lab was used (I think that this is now the standard protocol).



So I’ll ask you or anyone for that matter:

(nobody has ever been able to answer the following question).



Outside of any research facilities (we know these places are not held to the highest ethical standards (results mean money!)). Out of all the positives found in the wild, what percentage of them came from hunter harvested perfectly healthy animals?



With those numbers, it would be fairly easy to predict by good solid statistics, if the disease would be considered fatal! A good percentage of the positives should be from animals that look like they are dying. That’s just common sense!



BUT THAT IS GOOD SCIENCE AND THE PEOPLE WHO RECEIVE THE FUNDING DON”T WANT TO FIND THAT OUT! …..SO THEY IGNORE IT



Here is another statement I hear that is really based on VERY POOR SCIENCE!



“We are fairly certain CWD can be transmitted from animal to animal”



THAT’S TOTAL BULLCRAP! No one has ever proved that. In EVERY test case they have not ruled out that CWD can be deposited in the soil and then picked up again by another animal. That is certainly not animal to animal transmission! But they call it that!



In fact, I think if we wanted to it would be fairly easy to prove that it is not transmissible animal to animal, at least not very easily and at least not on a truck! The numbers are out there waiting for somebody to look at them.



In Missouri we have brought in thousands of deer and elk for the last 30 years from all over the US including infected areas. They have gone through sale barns and been dispersed to hunting preserves and breeder farms all over the state. I’m willing to bet (And prove statistically) that if it could be brought in on a truck and transmitted animal to animal, Missouri would have it. If CWD was serious, it would have been all over long before anyone started squawking about it. Guess what? We have tested extensively, continue to test and are CWD free. In every preserve, in the wild, and in all the game farms…Nothing…Zero.! If CWD is transmissible animal to animal that’s almost statistically impossible!



I image that if CWD went away or was put into the perspective it should be which is an insignificant disease that has NO AFFECT on ANY wild population of cervids, that there would be a tremendous cut in research funding, people would be out of certain "CWD" jobs, and many people would look really bad!!!



DNR’ and Wildlife research agencies have to justify their existence and secure funding. And they need people to think they are “Saving our Wildlife”.



Thus, we need a few positives now and then.......and a few articles to spread the lies....



If we turn over enough rocks, we find things......Even if they've been in front of our noses for a long time.



What happened to science based on evidence backed by facts and statistics? Since when are conclusions based on hunches and personal agendas? And then stated to the public as fact?



Does Theory no longer have to be proven to be accepted?



I certainly hope our medical research isn’t as sorry as our CWD research has been.



When we all look back at the way CWD was handled this will rate as one of the biggest blunders in the history of wildlife management.



I think we can compare it to mid-evil times when a person got sick or ill, and the chosen treatment was to BLEED them. They didn’t know why people were sick but they were speculating that the sickness would leave the body through this bleeding. Of course, they killed most of the patients! We can certainly kill all the deer and related industrys to get rid of CWD (maybe). That’s one alternative. I prefer not to “bleed” the herd. Science and scientific based research is the answer. But it has to be based on good solid science! I just wish people would wake up and realize it! The biggest fear on the horizon now is the fact that the people authorized to do the research are the same people that screwed this whole thing up. Do you think they are going to use sound scientific methods to prove how badly they acted? I bet not. So get ready to see some very un-scientific research.



Here is an example of very bad research. In Missouri they decided to do RANDOM sampling of the deer herd. So they picked out 10 counties along our northern borders, 10 counties at random, and 10 counties with at least 2 captive deer farms (What happened to random? SPECULATION AGAIN?). Then in each county, they decided to take 200 samples. In our county, Callaway, there are 3 check stations. There are 3 because this is a large county. Random sampling would suggest that you take 1/3 of the samples from each check station. Wrong! They took all the samples from the one check station right next to the hunting preserves in the county (mine). Hmmmmmmm wander what they’d like to find.



We’ll, again I’ve rambled on long enough. I better get out and check my herd. They all look good but you never know. I may just take out a few “fat and sassy” ones just to see. And then I may pull the engine on my tractor to check to see if it has any problems. Its been running great but could throw a rod at any time. My neighbors threw a rod a couple months ago, so mine is bound to do the same. I better pull the engine just in case!



Sam

"Man I feel better"

Nice rant Sam I feel better too, just from reading it

I think Sam pretty much covered my thoughts and feelings on CWD and its "research" too.......

Sam,

I need a cigarette after that rant! Nice points!

Sam,

Very well said. You are dead on the money with your point on " the CWD jobs". Way to much money has been thrown down this bottomless pit. We have bigger and more deadly diseases that need the attention and money put to their use.

Right on the money Sam. Like I said, WI is a good example of how the only thing CWD has done so far is increase the deer population in that part of the state. Hmmmmm

Hello Truby,

Welcome back. I have a couple of questions. Why does the government folks get to use these live tests but we cant test all of ours and have a CWD free herd? Now that makes sense to me. Second: How about letting a few deer farmers come out and treat those deer and see if we can cure them. Third: Are any of the deer you guys mess with whitetails. Fourth: Have you heard of any whitetails dying of the disease.

-------Sam-------- The statistics are out there on the amount of animals that were sick when they were expired by overpaid sharpshooters that I bet we could team up and out shoot. 2% of the animals were exibiting clinical symptoms when they were terminated by the special agents in charge of wasting wildlife. This I learned from a man with wings as harps played in the background at USAHA a couple of years ago. It was in the research. Now that all sounds good to smart folks but being a dumb eastern Oklahoma Redneck I just didn't get it, you know, so I stuck my fat hand in the air and proceeded to show my ignorance. In dumb eastern Oklahoma Redneck language which was spoken loudly to be heard over the harps, I asked: Wal whet wuz tha pursentige ov thim thar dear thet testid nagoteeve fer CWD thet hed thim egsact clynacal simptims cumpaired two tha othirs thet, ewe no, hed tha deseese. Well now the music quit and it sounded like i flushed a covey of bobwhites as the angel wings smoked outa there. Of course by now you know the answer was 2%. So the same percentage of negatives had clinical symptoms as the positives. 2%. Now if I hadn't of been there and been so dumb as to have to ask, everyone would have assumed that 2 % were dying of CWD. In reality I don't think any were.

The concern seems a little misplaced. The various departments around the country seem so concerned that none of our deer get out to contaminate the unhealthy stock that they spend many hours and countless dollars inspecting farms and getting GPS readings from your fences to file back in the cannot trust file. Now I ask my ag guy a few times how many deer he had ever heard of that escaped from a deer farm and had gotten run over. Of course he didn't know of any. So I said well have you ever heard of a horse or cow getting out and getting hit by a car. Well yes, he in fact had. So I tell him it seems to me your inspecting the wrong fences. Thousands of people have died from auto cow or horse collisions across this country. Nobody seems to care except for the families of the victims. What would happen if 1 deer related disease killed 1 American. We would face the wrath of God. (or could be big brother) 200 people died of Mad Cow disease and set the world in a panic. Hell thats 1/3 a nights worth in the inner city's across the country from murder. When in fact they could have quit feeding animal parts(brains and eggs) to the Brits for breakfast and quit grinding up body parts to feed back to animals and stoped all the carnage. The problem is we have educated everyone to the point of stupidity. No one in powerful positions seem to be able to think in the simplest of terms. Makes me wanna hold a danged straight pride parade. Go walkin down the street kissing women. Now thats simple and sounds fun too. Yep a straight pride parade right here in Dustin America. No better do it in Vegas so as all the women I kiss won't tell and there's lots of ugly ones here anyway.

Truby-- I do appreciate you being concerned enough to come on here and tell us anything at all. Wish all Fed's were like you. By the way, are you going to Vegas anytime soon? There's a parade gonna go on and I was wanting you to walk with me.(ha ha) Sorry I'm all hoped up on Amoxicillin for my toothache.

Tim,



That is VERY good information to know. You would think that a light would go off in the heads of some of these people that would trigger some sort of intelligent thought process.



It amazes me how they not only reach false conclusions based on guesses and poor, empty science, they also ignore sold facts that would point to conclusions that contradict their very core ideas when it comes to this disease.



When confronted with these facts they quickly change subjects and try to change focus on emotion and again the unknown guessing game.



For example, I’ve sat in our task force meetings and argued on many occasions that the real science tells us that this whole CWD debacle has been a total waste of time and effort and that we should just drop the whole thing. It possesses absolutely no threat. At least not to whitetails. The Federal regulations should simply state. “Don’t worry about CWD”



I told them that if I could trade the threat of CWD for the threat of EHD and Blue Tongue in my preserve and breeding herd, I would do so 100 times over and start sleeping like a baby during the Summer months.



Their response:



“Well, uuuummmm, our whitetail deer herd is a multi-billion dollar industry in Missouri and its our job to protect it”.



When threatened they backup into a protective corner and state a basic idea that has no correlation to the subject or science matter being discussed.



Here is a question for everyone. If we would have allocated and spent the amount of money on EHD/Blue Tongue research that we spent on CWD, how much more would we know about those real killers?



Everything we have done with regards to those diseases has been done by the deer farmers with absolutely no help from the people who are suppose to protect our herds. Its not a "politically" important disease so they don't want to waste any time or money on it.



What a shame that we have been taken for a ride through “NeverNever” land.



I can’t take this anymore. I have to stop typing now or I’ll be here all day….

TrubyUSDA, I also would like to thank you for coming on here and sharing your thoughts. It is nice to have someone from the gov who isn't afraid to face the questions.

I tend to not even read many of the posts about CWD anymore. The whole issue has become such a joke. However I did read some of the above posts and have to agree with Sam and Tim.

I think the biggest thing I would like to see is put people in charge of the research and such that don't have a person stake in the issue.

And I would like to see actual common sense applied.



You know if us deer farmers and the deer hunters in the wild were seeing deer sick and dropping over from this "disease" it might actually be worth the money, time and hardships to deer growers and hunters. But the fact is this "disease" is not killing deer. I would be willing to bet that more people die each year in the US from complications associated with the common cold, than there are deer dying from CWD. Except if you include complications associated with gunshot wounds to those deer.

Give them Hell SAM !! You took the words right out of my mouth, some of them I didn't even know were in there.



I am from WV. I live on the opposite end of the state from the "infected area". Here are a couple questions that we have about this. What happened to the carcasses of those deer that tested positive? We have all been told that a diseased carcass can threaten an area as much as anything else. Did these hunters take those deer home, butcher the deer and then take the bones and heads up the hollow and dump them out? This only shows the lack-there-of in the attempted control of this disease. We have posed these questions to our lawmakers. Believe me, we have A LOT of people scratching their heads right now.

Tim,



I have tears in my eyes after reading your comments. I love it when a fellow "redneck" asks the same questions I ask.

Tim Condict said:

Hello Truby,

Welcome back. I have a couple of questions. Why does the government folks get to use these live tests but we cant test all of ours and have a CWD free herd? Now that makes sense to me. Second: How about letting a few deer farmers come out and treat those deer and see if we can cure them. Third: Are any of the deer you guys mess with whitetails. Fourth: Have you heard of any whitetails dying of the disease.

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Tim, I really wish I had an answer as to why the live tests aren't approved for everyone's use yet but I don't have a good one. As far as I can tell the hangup is that they want more positive animals to try out the test some more and make sure it works-although the research which says it works has already been published. It doesn't make sense to me that we can't use a tool that we spent money developing (silly me, I thought tools were made to be used and not just to look good on a resume)



Second, I'd be more than willing to let the deer farmers with all the experience come out and treat the deer since I'm pretty sure you guys know what you're doing way better than most researchers (too bad I'm not in charge ). We have helped an elk rancher treat a few of his animals but, so far anyway, we've had no luck on that front.



Third: We do work with white-tails but the majority of the CWD related work that we've been allowed to do so far has been mostly mule deer and elk. We did do a small study involving species-to-species transmission between white-tails and elk a couple of years ago (not yet published)



Fourth: Yes, there are quite a few cases of white-tailed deer dying of CWD in research situations at least. Most of the cases in farmed or wild animals seem to be from culled or hunter-killed animals which tested positive after they were dead but didn't actually die of the disease.



Let me know when this parade gets organized and I'll be there with bells on

IndependenceRanch said:

I think the biggest thing I would like to see is put people in charge of the research and such that don't have a person stake in the issue.

And I would like to see actual common sense applied.

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Independence, I think you hit the nail on the head here. In my opinion, the biggest problem we have is people who can't see the issue clearly due to inflated pride. Research is still, unfortunately, a very competitive field and a lot of people lose site of the bigger picture in a quest to make themselves look better. Don't get me wrong I like to win as much as the next person but when that attitude is applied to research (or any sort of science for that matter) we all end up losing because we can't work together to find a reasonable solution which benefits everyone involved.

TrubyUSDA said:

As far as we know CWD is fatal 100% of the time- the disease can sometimes be slowed with antibiotics but this is because most deaths that are attributed to CWD are, in fact, caused by secondary infections (usually aspiration pneumonia). If the disease is allowed to progress, even with plenty of antibiotics, it will eventually cause the death of the animal as the nervous system becomes more and more damaged- we have yet to see an animal which tested positive and did not eventually die of CWD or related complications. It is possible that, at some time in the future, there may be some way to treat CWD but for now there are no viable treatment options (but we're working on a few). We do have live animal tests for both deer and elk so the test is no longer fatal. .

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Truby:



Since you work with CWD animals. Here is the rub on the "always fatal" characterization.



The only way you can diagnose CWD is by identifying abnormal prions in brain tissue or in lymph nodes. Well, certainly this is a later stage of disease and if it is found there, the progression is fatal.



BUT where is the CWD agent prior to the lymph or nervous tissue. BEFORE you can detect it, but after infection? CAN IT be intercepted and eliminated PRIOR to infecting the nervous tissue and eventually the Brain? hmmmm, However, Once its gets the nervous system, the deer is toast, but not until.



Other organs including lymph nodes can clear the CWD disease debris (bad prions, PrP) thru cell death and renewal without the animal surcoming to classic disease, BUT ONLU IF IT DOES NOT REACH THE BRAIN. It is a brain disease, a TSE. Only brain cells are not renewable, hence fatal if destroyed. If it does not reach the brain it is not a fatal TSE.



That being said, CWD can be conquered by surpressing or eliminating the agent prior to nervous system infection, hence this is a window to achieve a "CURE". Now when I said the antibiotics surpress the disease, I was NOT talking about secondary symptoms from complications, like pneumonia. I was talking surpression of the TSE agent specifcally. Review Prusiners work on Doxicycline and it affect on bad prion reproduction. Tetracycline derivitives SEEM to slow or stop PrP propagation. Why is that? If certain antibiotics are administed prior to classic disease characteristics, will it stop or slow the disease from reaching and multiplying in lymph and nervous tissue? My inquiring mind wants to know.



Are some animals immune? Although the Ft Collins pens have had 100% fatality from CWD, that is not the norm for the disease. IN the wild, Either its not very transmittable (a high treshold for infection) or there is some form of immunity. Elk MM and LL's are suggestive of different levels of susepceptability, correct? Possiblity due to immune system variation, correct? If the genotype can affect infection rates, is that due to immune system response? IF so, then perhaps an immunity CAN BE attained thru some sort of artifical process, not much different than a vaccine-created immunity.



Lastly, addressing the live animal test. Current tests on rectal lymph, throat lymph are late stage disease indicators,and are not at all suitable for "clean herd" testing. No one should be using these tests as signs of a clean wild or captive herd. They just are not accurate for early disease.



Dispite claims, there is NO gold standard test for finding CWD or any TSE until AFTER it has fully infected the animal. The tests only confirm that the animal is fatal due to brain infection and certaijn destruction and that a certain kind of protein is present....and that protein must be present in sufficient amounts to even be detectable. Not good compared to other kinds of disease tests.

SAM: I am glad you feel better. A good rant can refresh the soul......



I can offer a couple of tid bits.



CWD is a very minor disease, as are TSE's in general. but the research bucks are big, and the bad-er the disease sounds, the more money can be solicited from the public. Mad cow has been worth billions, easily $200 to $400 million per human CASE or more!



I would also agree that more information should be included with the positive data, but that would have to be provided by the hunter which may not be a particularly accurate source of info.



Now you have asked, "....So I’ll ask you or anyone for that matter:

(nobody has ever been able to answer the following question).

.... Out of all the positives found in the wild, what percentage of them came from hunter harvested perfectly healthy animals?



I would wager that MOST of them (+66%) (of the positives) are healthy looking, yet test positive. Here is why. ( I will ignor sampling and testing errors)



IN general terms, the disease takes 3 years from infection to death. The disease is detectable after say 18 to 24 months (50% to 66% of the disease time span). THEREFORE, one can conclude that upwards of over 50% of the infected animals are UNDETECTABLE and have NO SYMPTOMS, hence are healthy-looking, and dont test postive! So nobody even knows they have CWD.



On the remainder (which are postive), they have no obvious symptoms until the last 6 months or so when they start to waste away. Of the positives then, say 6 months out of 18 months (33%) or 6 out of 12 month (50%) show symptoms. Conversely 50% to 66% show NO outward symptoms, yet test positive.



Generalizing then, 33% out of 50% (of the tested postives) (or 16.5%) have symptoms and hence 83.5% of the infected animals have NO SYMPTOMS. Hard to understand, but that is the way it is.







Now Sam your rant on the transmissiblity of CWD is correct. It aint very transmissible in casual situations. Prolonged exposure to a diseased animal or the environs of one, is necessary.



Now whether it can pass nose to nose is still undeterminable since feces and debris are always present at the same time. It is known that a carasses can infect, and that close pen confinment with diseased animal debris (but not infected animals) can pass the disease. that being said, it still could be animal to animal but it is certainly animal debris to animal. In all cases, it takes awhile for the infective agent to take hold of its victim. (this goes back to my prior comment to Truby.





All in all, I subscribe to the philosophy of FOLLOW THE MONEY. When big money is on the line, one must review the "research" to be sure it is not biased for money or idealogy.

Hi Rich,



Some how I had the feeling you would jump in on this thread. I always appreciate your comments and always learn from them. I know you have been "in the trenches" with CWD.



I have another off the wall question that I've been wanting to ask any one or every one who will listen. It seems we always have to do things the hard way when it comes to testing our animals. I always scratch my head at these programs and wander who comes up with these rules. They don't make any sense. I’m probably just an *****!



Lets say we have a herd of whitetail deer and want to do all the major testing of CWD, TB and Bangs. Now since there is no live test for CWD, we are required to monitor our herds, testing at death. TB and Bangs on the other hand have live tests. But since the powers that be can't agree on basically anything about CWD, most states require a 5 year status to move deer in (if they allow it at all, shame on some of you states!) So really, lack of CWD monitoring status is the most common cause for not being able to move a deer.



With that kept in our minds, lets look at the TB and Bangs programs. We do a whole herd test 2 years in a row to gain accredited status, but then we have to do a whole herd test every 3 years to keep it. That’s a lot of work after 3 years! Is it REALLY needed?



Now think about this. It is VERY easy to do a post mortem TB test. In fact, all slaughters houses require the inspectors to inspect for that. Right now, you can move animals across most borders on a slaughter permit because the testing will be done at the time of slaughter. I also assume you could do a Bangs test at the time of death since death usually involves some loss of blood and it’s a blood test. I’m not really sure if they do it.



So, since we all have to be in a CWD monitoring program I ask you this?



Since they put us through this crap, why can’t we at least use it to our advantage? Why can’t we also test for TB and Bangs at the time of death and keep our accredited status WITHOUT having to re-test every 3 years?. AFTER initial accreditation (with 2 whole herd tests), accreditation could be kept current by “monitoring the herd” through post mortem testing.



Its just an idea, What do you all think (I CERTAINLY don't want to give them any ideas for more testing, this would be give a little to get something back)?



I would guess it would be impossible to ever get put in place anyway. Makes too much sense! It might be put on the same timeline as the “Federal CWD rules” . I remember being told in May of 2001 that those would be out in about 6 months. Here we are 9 years later. When the topic comes up from some federal vet person at our meetings (they change ever couple years), I just interrupt them and rudely say. We don’t want to hear it! We have no confidence in anything you people have to say!



AAAAAHHHH, I’m starting to vent again….gottta go…

SAm:



Your idea is a reasonable one. The only problem is NOT ENOUGH cervid animals go to slaughter. That IS how beef works, kill a certain statistcal number of beef and that is as good as a whole herd test.



some one would have to determine how many animals from a herd need to be tested to eliminate the risk of a disease and then if that number is slaughtered in one year, the herd would be presumed clean. I support that premise wholehardily



To me that is part of the reason for having a viable meat industry (like on the venison forum section) All my kills are automatic TB tests. Bruce is not tested but could be.



Build up the meat business and whole herd testing can be ligitimately bypassed.