Remember this: How wonderful to be wise, to analyze and interpret things. Wisdom lights up a person's face, softening its harshness. ~Ecclesiastes 8:1~
For Educational Purposes:
Insomnia has hit me as the world falls apart with interruption after interruption. People can't navigate Outlook, planes have come to a halt, our good hunters are out in the podcasts trying to conjure up a dual or putting out their diss tracks to call in an offender for the fight.
Click on the golden links for additional reading. If you dare.....
Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD): Current Updates July 2026
I should be asleep right now, but no. I am watching a podcast trying to decide if it is manufactured panic, a contrived psy-op of controversial opposition to gain ratings and monetization, or people talking out their neck. I didn't even check the date it was posted. It is not a good idea to target a high visibility hunting personality that resonates with the common man. Even though that personality does have flaws and failings. It's just not good business. Don't throw your reputation down trying to crawl up another man's back to get the star off the top of an unstable Christmas tree.
But its November and I was a wee lad......
I am watching these three bros on the couch, kicking back, drinking some buds. These two guys have a guest named Tim Horton on the podcast and are about to ask him his stance, theory, and creative input on CWD (Chronic Wasting Disease). They want to know his takes and thoughts. These two guys are saying they agree with him. Here are the bullet points. Tim Horton states in summary:
Agencies are push marketing CWD but if it were serious why would they need marketing dollars to get the word out about it?
CWD is basically Alzheimer's for deer-old age disease, contagious, BUT the big thing about it is it can't hurt humans, you can eat the deer meat and never hurt a deer population.
**Whispers the CDC has it on their website. There is a bunch of "do not dos" on there because they know with disease, natural selection, mutations, Darwinism, and biological warfare that it's not impossible. If you think it is disease or you are in a high diseased deer area-don't eat it. It's like the possibility of being hit by a golden bed pan from Outer Space. Unlikely but not impossible. There is a lot of weird happenings in this world. **
CDC: About Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD)
Claims university and agencies used it as an unlimited way for them to get grants to do things.
*Whispers is he going to give them the money to do the research so a plan can be devised to be stewards and keep our deer herds safe? How else does he think this happens because people don't want to pull that out their pocket. **
"It's the biggest racket to happen in the outdoors". Does he mean Uncle Sham? Didn't Nugent say this in a video or two?
To Tim Horton the problem is you take a fringe hunter who hears about this and doesn't want to hunt. They are running people away from the sport that is already trending downwards due to technology and disinterest. The data doesn't support what agencies or others push. Complains about regulating hunters in areas-it's not worth it to go hunting
**Whispers does he not know about the past election's blue wave, and Senator Kennedy stating that the American People are upset because they can't afford life. People don't have extra money. **
This is where Meateater the Podcast comes in. States Meateater and Jason Sumner's are doing a doom and gloom piece; Rinella is so concerned about it. States Rinella throws shade at the captive industry, he is against it. Claims they bashed a deer breeder. It's a philosophy
**Whispers did he not hear Jason Sumner say that he hopes the captive industry keeps up with their efforts to follow CWD and help combat it? I watched it several times looking for the complaints the other guy had and it wasn't there. We must be watching on different timelines. **
Tim Horton churns out some sort of data to support his claims such as researchers can't tell where deer got it from, no DNA, no RNA. He is saying humans have it.
*Whispers let us clear this up. Humans have the same general structure of prion proteins, but the strain and host adaptation differ. Under normal circumstances, the CWD prion will not replicate in a human prion system. We must be careful in a time of gene editing where things can get spliced, added, edited, and put back together for a different result. We live in a time of gene modification. A good example is a five-year CRISPR/Cas9 project on black-legged deer ticks (lxodes scapularis) which is a vector for Lyme disease. The researchers were editing tick eggs to interrupt mouth part development and armor to disrupt feeding ability. Deer are not yet edited due to factors such as regulatory and ethical barriers, technological challenges, and research focus. Biologists successfully hatched gene-edited ticks for the first time.
Other examples are gene-edited cattle resistant to bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV), cattle with slick coats to improve heat stress resilience, and editing boar taints in pigs by delaying puberty.
These are some of the approaches that can be applied to deer in the future in the wild or managed populations. This will be a whole different post. I can tell you right now. **
The heavy Agricultural part of it (this was his chance to Shine). What do you mean sir?
*Whispers I didn't hear him elaborate on captive cervid populations in agriculture. Maybe I should slide some of these research papers on here? **
Chronic Wasting Disease Transmission Risk Assessment for Farmed Cervids in Minnesota and Wisconsin
Artificial Attractants: Implications for Disease Management in Deer
Chronic Wasting Disease: State of the Science
Tim Horton states it doesn't have anything to do with disease mitigation. Points out disease mitigation in certain counties. He is saying that it is high because that is where the dairy (Milk cow farms) are. There is lack of alfalfa and farmers are shipping in alfalfa that takes on prions that goes to the cow poop. The farmer sprays it back on fields then send crops all around the country. Due to this there is no stopping it. Heavy Ag is where the endemic is through the roof.
*Whispers you would have thought those farmers learned when they caused a lot of sickness in the contamination of vegetables that were sent to market. But hey, who am I to judge? Here let's learn you something. Mitigation means reducing the severity of something. Not to be an asshole but there is a mitigation hierarchy that is used to guide how to address adverse impacts on biodiversity. This is applied to avoid impacts where possible, minimize unavoidable impacts, restore or rehabilitate damaged areas, and offset residual losses with biodiversity offsets. We have to discern is it wildlife, agriculture, or ecology that he is pointing to ergo he implies dairy cows and deer so agriculture, but it could be captive farmed cervids as well. He is talking about dairy cows and deer so it could be agriculture, ecology, or wildlife. Let us discern the difference.
The key distinctions are scale, drivers, and overlap. Wildlife mitigation is species-level and addresses direct impacts on fauna. Ecological mitigation is ecosystem-level and addresses habitat and process loss. Agriculture mitigation is sector-specific, integrating both species and ecosystem goals and addresses impacts from farming practices. All three use the same mitigation hierarchy and may combine measures where an agricultural project can restore an ecosystem and benefit a target species such as bob white quail. **
He claims other people were trying to push him on Meateater as a guest because they got upset about it.
**Whispers if they were pushing him, they weren't brave enough to vote themselves up to jump into the Volcano that is the Big Woo. Maybe he should have told them they had a mouth to go talk. Sounds more like they were sacrificing him in case it didn't work out, and he got his lick handed to him. Those are not your friends my brother. **
I was straying off the path to taking him seriously, but this is where I just said to hell with this. He starts rattling on in a shaky voice about Chernin group buying out Meateater, they are anti-gun, and that Rinella is throwing shade at the hunting industry. I say throw the shade; throw the whole mountain. Throw the whole Big Woo at them. Tim Horton claims this behavior is weird. It's not.
In good conscious, if you are going to be the pro to someone's con, at least inform the listener aforehand at the beginning as you state your bold opinion that you don't watch any of the Meateater except the CWD. Then deviate off into how Rinella does his business like its a crime and an indicator what he is doing being invalid in the hunting community. That has nothing to do with CWD.
Horton really was a sacrifice on the pyre. I would be pissed. I don't think these people realize that the social media and internet platforms are forming guidelines on putting people on blast unless it is for educational purposes and sometimes you are trying to illuminate the subject and not the personal. Ego be damned. The person is just another person in a series of people talking around a subject. It's not meant to be person. Outing the person wasn't as important as speaking on the problem at hand and all the things around it.
It begins to look suspicious like someone is trying to get this dude on Meateater. He is literally stating he is not supporting the concept of Meateater but wants in the door. Then throw the word coward around like that is gonna spook an emotional response to get a desired outcome. Brah, you doing to much. Who does that? I guess he thinks the greasy wheel will get a seat at the table.
I stopped on 39:31 out of 1:29:57. I took a break and went back to watching for the plot.
Never mind, I might have to take a nap and come back to this. I still haven't found any research papers on dairy farms, prions, and wild/captive cervids. Where are they?
~Courtesy of the AOFH~
