The Transmission: Nancy Drewing CWD Part I

Remember this: Sometimes where you get that itchy twitch of intuition that something is not right-you have to go with it. 

I am on a research bender one night at a job I was experiencing. This job was an eight hour stint of watching Barneys in the woods, phone calls, coloring, and a lot of free time looking at all things wildlife. The nature of the rabbit hole I am free-diving into is rabies. After swimming around that paddling pool, I decided I had a bad case of the lets-go-look-sees.

I began to read about Chronic Wasting Disease. It was a thing during another job I worked over a season at a wildlife processing facility and brain samples were being turned in to local wildlife agencies for their biologists to examine and study on the hunter time-dime. 

Much like any other online Nancy Drew, I started the old keyboard up and pulled up more tabs with different reseach and ideas that my screen started to look like a dating application. Read-click the X-goodbye info.

I began to follow the trail. This began my reading into the Adventures of the Suspicious Researchers of 1967's Colorado Division of Wildlife's Foothills Wildlife Research Facility a.k.a. The National Wildlife Research Center (NWRC). All I can say is vague. There is no real definitive paper on this burp in time. 

Let me set the scene. 1967 Fort Collins, Colorado is the origin story or legend of where this went down. Some captive Mule Deer were taken from the wild in Northeastern Colorado to a specific facility  as part of a winter survival and nutrition research study. The deer appeared in good health per researchers. They get put in with some sheep and disaster ensues.

It took an act of Congress to find the human suspects: Mike, Terry and I. Mind you, when I look for these three people in other research you can't find them. It is like they are part of some secret military operation where whatever happened has been buried somewhere, never to be seen again. Infect, Deflect, and Deny. 

I perused an article entitled, "Chronic Wasting linked to Fort Collins for 50 years", by Miles Blumhardt on The Coloradoan website. The person Blumhardt initial fingers as the guy is Gene Schooveld. Schooveld is a retired Colorado Division of Wildlife Senior Wildlife biologist who lived in Fort Collins.

On this website you can hear Mike Miller, Colorado Parks and Wildlife senior wildlife veterinarian is informing the reporter about the goings on. It does appear he isn't so clear on the retelling of historical events, probably due to the absence of info. He does go on to say that the deer dying kept ruining good research experiments. This made me think that they must have re-upped with a couple more clutches of deer before hair pulling and gnashing of teeth ensued from the frustration. If you watch the video provided you see that it is an area with grass set against hills and some protection from the elements. The area appears to be unproblematic as shown. We don't know what the conditions were at the time of the research. 

My understanding there were twelve deer in with unnumbered sheep. You don't know how long these deer were alive but if it takes 1.5 to 2-2.5 years for Chronic Wasting to bring an animal to its end, how is it that these deer died so fast. Mike Miller states they appeared healthy. That would mean that those deer were infected in 1965-66 because this is noted as an event in 1967. The research was suppose to be on nutrition over wintering and natural deer history. Upon closer inspection, it reads like an ill-handled scientific inquiry where the ball was fumbled for lack of a better word. 

What areas specifically did these sample deer come from? How did they bring them to the facility? Were they in a cattle trailer that wasn't sanitary? Was there no physical exam? Why were they not quarantined from other species due to their designation as a sample group? What were the researchers feeding those animals that was suppose to help them over winter? What exactly was the structure of the research? What happened to the sheep that was being used by CSU to conduct Scrapie research? What was really going on there? Why is it that in 2025 you can look at a map and it still a hotbed of eyestrain? What is everyone missing like the nose on their face? 

Here look at this (click on it to make it bigger):

I sat back and thought there is someone out there doing the dissection and sample collecting for sampling but what about the other factors that go into solving this mystery? There is no location except Fort Collins. If they are stating the deer came from different areas of northeastern Colorado then one of the deer had CWD. Their exposure comingling with the sheep, human hand, or some other unknown could have caused the exposure. Were the deer there long enough to indicate the CWD gobbled them up after they were put together in the pen with the sheep. Information lost to history or in the annals of the NWRC.

This situation moved through time and space to that map above. I am going to tell you now this is where my research car goes off the road into a rabbit hole(s). 

I looked at the above map and thought, it is still there like a blazing field of red poppies. Why? The only thing I could think of is birds. Think about it. The mass migration of birds that appear in spring leading up to winter. Then you have the pockets of CWD far away places like Norway that had a reindeer infected, Canada, and South Korea. There is even an article from the Coloradoan that is about the mass migration of birds from all over. 

I wondered what birds could migrate from Norway or South Korea and what about those areas around Canada? 

The examples are the Black-faced Spoonbill and artic tern:

Arctic Tern

Blackfaced Spoonbill

 

These are marsh or shore birds and require to some degree a water body.

The birds that are around Fort Collins as an example are Common goldeneye, American tree sparrow, and lesser scaup.

Lesser Scaup

 

Common Goldeneye

American tree Sparrow

My first untested hypothesis is that somewhere in these birds migratory plans, something might be contributing to the CWD. Stopover locations that give migratory birds a pitstop are subject to scrutiny. There is the idea of migratory birds that practice fecal sac business. My research on this is there is not a lot of testing done. The birds either gobble it or dispose of it outside of the nest at some location. The reason I state this is, "For example, the widely held belief that all CWD occurrences can be traced back to a single Colorado research facility has precluded wildlife and animal health professionals from considering that some outbreaks may be arising from unrecognized exposure events that occur repeatedly over time." (e.g., Williams & Miller 2003, Greenlee et al. 2015) 

My second untested hypothesis is during the 1967 research shenanigans something was done or not done that elicited a situation where the twelve mule deer met with a moment of destiny that has changed the course of cervids history either through poor research practices or secret research practices of the military and biological warfare plot twist. Trust me that crazy rabbit hole exists to the Nth power. 

Because the word transmit is used for the mobility of the prion, something within or outside of the life of the ungulate is making it susceptible for infection even though this is a sub-viral protein. Sub-viral meaning agent are pathogenic, can cause disease but lack viral properties. Subviral agents are satellites, viroids, prions, defective interfering particles, viriforms, and obelisk. 

I most likely will revisit this because I am still researching on the topic. Strange things are definitely happening at Fort Collins. If its not the deer, it is the rabbits. What is next?

If you can learn anything from this it is building a sound research study with plenty of documentation and observations no matter how futile or stupid it might appear and communicating forward in time if the problem at hand becomes a persistent ghost in the future. If an exposure begins all it will do is spread. If you can't stop the spread, therein lies the problem because if Nature can't stop it on its own, then who or what will?

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

Copyright © 2012 All Rights Reserved.

Citations:

Miller, M. W., and J. R. Fischer. 2016. The First Five (or More) Decades of Chronic Wasting Disease: Lessons for the Five Decades to Come. Transactions of the North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference 81: in press.

Chronic Wasting linked to Fort Collins for 50 years. 2018 August 30.The Coloradoan.https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2018/08/23/cdc-tse-mad-cow-chronic-wasting-disease-linked-fort-collins/878097002/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2680674/#ref-list1

https://www.defenceiq.com/air-land-and-sea-defence-services/articles/prions-as-bioweapons

https://ndupress.ndu.ed/Portals/68/Documents/occasional/cswmd/CSWMD_OccasionalPaper-12.pdf

https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/27449/chapter/3

The Deer Farm of Dr. Moreau

 

Remember this: Steel has to be tempered to make a sword that is effective in combat, beautiful to behold, lethal and to be passed down; much like ancestral DNA.

 

Most of my life it has been men’s pursuit to get a dream buck with a worthy set of antlers. Back in the day the first question asked was, “How many points?” Now it’s to pull out your measuring tape to get the exact dimensions like you’re planning to build a bird house. Of course the allure of bagging a big buck came with a back story of his ability to subvert the hunter on numerous occasions while screwing over Death until the buck meets his final untimely end. To some hunters it’s the meat not the antlers but the antlers are still there like a crown up the buck's head. History has proven many people have fought and died for or against a crown.

In the past and present bucks were at liberty to breed with the doe of their choice in the wild. If the buck could avoid getting killed to live another season then the antlers picked up more points and size. The present day doe see a different kettle of fish being served with the adjunct of farmed hunting preserves where bucks are used as Super Sires to select herds. What was the nuance of the large antler before these hopefully ‘pre-determined antlers’ came along? What did antlers back in the day represent to the person that hunts? How has this mentality changed or been redefined? Does anyone care as long as they have ‘a monster buck with a nice rack’? Questions. Questions.

Pulling out the old AOFH measuring tape, let’s see if planned antler size through breeding or genetic modification is different or the same as Made-In-The-Wild antlers. Could it all be preference, a sign of the changing times, or just irrelevant in the face of a bullet?

First I would review Made-In-The-Wind antlers:

“Large antlers represent to the hunter the animal’s success in surviving years of threats, including harsh conditions, challenges by conspecific males, and the predatory efforts of previous hunters. The hunter’s sense of being, developed from his exercise of domination, is felt more fully when the victim is himself imbued with power. The victim must be seen as powerful for the hunter to feel manly and alive in his conquest; thus hunters construe it elaborate rules of fair chase to keep the power difference between hunter and hunted from appearing absolute.” (Luke 94)
Do you really see this when applied to farmed deer for food, agritourism, or trophy hunting? No. That buck lives the life of Riley.

Luke contends that it’s a series of events that shapes the ambience of the buck with his antlers as a visible badge of courage and longevity to adversities that come. These adversities being overcome are a testament to the power of the buck for his survival skills. I do think Luke didn’t word the above so well because a victim that is imbued with power will certainly not make a person feel more powerful. Victim is a poor choice of word because bucks are not going to come out with a white flag and declare, “Take my life please.”  Worthy opponent might have been a better option. It would be more substantial if the hunter is working a fenced farm or totally baiting out the deer. Victim screams unsuspecting. Most deer suspect something; if they are wild.  This would bring about the sense of power of the buck being on an equal playing field with the hunter because the squirrelly buck could get away. I do take into consideration that hunting is filled with technological gadgetry and to some degree doesn’t make it sporting. In regards to survival the buck could be near death during ruts, starving and becoming dehydrated while fighting off other males for a shot at a female. When two bucks fight over a doe and lock horns it gives new meaning to ‘over my dead body’.  Nature has been on its own for millennia where reproduction is concerned.  It’s called evolution and survival dictates life will find a way as Jeff Goldblum states in Jurassic Park.  Impatience and a need to control causes people to start messing in things, the fact that no cares, or was given how you now have to figure out a way to save something from extinction. There are other considerations though.

As I gave thoughtful investigation to this a new issue arose; the manipulation of buck progeny through Super Sires to hopefully breed impressive antlers within a certain buck score. Also the way in which these Super Sires and progeny are treated to get the best and desired results in antler scoring.

Could this be the new Island of Dr. Moreau? Of course Dr. Moreau was playing God by creating human crosses via vivisection but the concepts of moral responsibility, hunter identity as it relates to wild versus domesticated deer stock, and human interference came to mind.

I looked around for some deer breeding farms. I will admit there are beautiful well-kept bucks with impressive antlers. Doe and bucks are kept in fenced, covered shelters, handled regularly, fed proper nutrition, dewormed, and treated like domesticated cattle ear tag and all. Some of the conversational jargon going on in forums was progeny having a certain percentage to sire where antler scoring, mass per age, antler expedited growth in shorter time frames, and character.  Of course the whole push to do this sort of thing is to cast a trophy antler/meat in the fires of breeding and genetics while slapping a $9000+ price tag on that fuzzy pointy end. Engineered dream buck of a lifetime carries a hefty price tag. I wondered if you could get out cheaper hunting public lands with a tag for a Made-In-The-Wild buck. Which one carries more sentiment? Does this make me a purist to think maybe this isn’t such a great idea or over the long run are they really selectively breeding and not for the suppression of disease and pestilence? Given also the fact that unless you are inserting select alleles onto a genetic code to get a desired result just performing animal husbandry through selection of physical desired traits will not always get you what you desire. It is still a crap shoot.

I guess in the end the question is if you had to choose between Brawny Buck and Metrosexual Buck; which one would you chose based on the information the deer are living completely different lifestyles.

In reflection this is one of those strange moments when a person who hunts is standing at the crossroads of animal activism, hunting, science, and personal belief. On one hand the huntress can ask herself would she rather hunt a wild game animal at liberty that was not interfered directly via humans or hunt a buck that was engineered for certain physical qualities while being raised in a domesticated situation that lead up to its death in less than noble fashion.  I would submit on one hand some would argue a buck is a buck. Luke points out that this engineered buck may make the male hunter feel less than manly due to the circumstance. Others would say just shoot it already. If science has given humans the ability to sequence the genome of a deer and it is a reality that genes can be altered and manipulated for requested outcomes as far as physical characteristics go (as it pertains to bucks); what are they doing to the doe? Where is this all leading to? Have we been down this road before with beef, chicken, and fish? Do we not ever learn? Dr. Moreau used vivisection on animals and humans. Scientists are using it now on deer and everything else. The only concern I have with this is the effect it will have on the defining facets of hunting. Selfishly manipulating the beast can sully the quality of the hunting act by supplanting domestication with the wild. Does this mean I can walk out in a field, shoot a cow called Old Bessie, and say it’s the same thing?   Is it worth engineering a deer in captivity for a nice trophy mount on the wall when you know where that head/buck came from? Certainly not the wild: maybe from a petri dish or super ovulated ovary.

 

Written by: W Harley Bloodworth

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

 

Literature Cited:

Luke, Brian. Brutal Manhood and the Exploitation of Animals. Urbana and Chicago, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. 2007. Print. Pg. 94.