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

2024 Duck Stamp Contest

Remember this: Talent can win more than once. Reading the directions are important.

Every year I follow the United States Fish and Wildlife Duck Stamp Competition. I usually follow Kira Sabin and her process as she selects the duck of choice to paint and her wins and struggles for getting to final shippable submission. She has sat as a judge for the juvenile duck stamp competition and provides excellent input. 

At first glance, you understand this is a lump of 300 or so entries that are of different levels of artistic ability and growth. In good purpose, giving someone the opportunity to attempt, and try again another day, is a learning curve of how not to give up but to come back to the drawing board and try again after improving one's skills as an artist, more so a wildlife artist.

Time and practice can cure a lot of problems. 

With that being said, a lot of the submissions were probably cut due to not reading the requirements. 

In the instructions, it stated something to the effect that you could choose from the migratory fowl, but you had to put in the conservation aspect and the habitat. Alot of these are migratory fowl swimming or suspended on water with some sprigs of grass. Its starts looking like a Sears portrait studio photo shoot. 

It views, "I am a beautiful duck, watch me swim."

2025 Winner by James Hautman 

Three Buffleheads

Here are some entries I wanted to review:

(Click on images to enlarge)

This image provided light and color and action with the above-below water line visuals. There is a hint of the cattails in the background. 

Several of these were hyper-realistic but lacked the conservation and habitat or action.

This image was camera worthy for realism but was portraiture with no story behind it.

This was a nice little photo with the underwater foot and bubble with the ripple of the reflection.

These two entries were cool neutral but still lacked conservation and habitat.

I thought this entry dabbled in the folklore and stop action imagery but had a suggested story, migratory fowl on the borderline of human habitation and industry. It looked intentionally different visually.

This entry was a great action shot with complimentary background.

These two entries I adored for the attention to detail and how much work it must have took.

This little entry right here was different. It is different to me because here you have the known and unknown where Conservation isn't always right there in your face. 

The questions to ask are:

Why is there a decoy present?

Is the decoy implemented for wildlife conservation science or active hunting?

What happens if the little fowl disappears forever from the landscape due to over hunting, disease, or limiting factors that will cause there to only be the remnants of floating fowl decoys that will drift till they get caught up in the mud, moor themselves in the grasses, or sink to the depths?

Will there be another image like this for the future or will this be a reminder reaching out from the past that illustrates the loss we will have as a country when a political pen swipes a paper and slowly but surely rubs it out like No 2 lead on paper? Because of revenge? Retribution? Religious fanaticism?

It is quite an image to ponder on. You travel from pristine, beautiful healthy fowl to what if it were to all end tomorrow?

These online events and competitions can bring people to love it and study on the greater ethos of Conservation and those creatures and landscapes within it and to those people that wake up and go to sleep every night with its past, present, and future always on their minds.

Go ahead and put it on your calendar for next year, practice and save up that entry fee. You will not regret it!

If you would like to view images click the link: 

2025 Federal Duck Stamp Contest Entries | Flickr

Federal Duck Stamp Contest & Event Information | U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

Adieu!

Footnote: All images are subject to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service copyright. Images used solely to support contest and spread awareness of wildlife conservation, conservation law, and public service awareness through education and learning.

Saiga: The Spectre of Absence

Remember this: We ask the same question, over and over, to the same end.

I’ve been keeping my eye on this Saiga mass die-off. By reports, since mid-May, Saiga have been dying off. The current geography dot on our Map of Mysterious Deaths is Kazakhstan.

I was reading an article in Nature Magazine entitled, “Mysterious die-off sparks race to save Saiga antelope”, by Henry Nicholls. I have thoughts on the subject. The article reported a quote per Richard Kock, veterinarian, “of 100% mortality.” These dying herds were 300 kilometers apart. There have been Saiga die-off noted in the past. On one hand, people could dismiss this as another event, or should there be more concern?

By the article, it is suggested the causative agent is not a directly transmitted disease, but possibly a polymicrobial disease.

When you think of the ways an animal can get sick, the likely suspects are there.

Suspect #1 Ingestion

Suspect #2 Inhalation

Suspect #3 Surface or Sexual Contact

Suspect #4 We shall call it “?”

The list goes on….

Polymicrobial diseases are marked, clinically and pathologically of, the presence of more than one species of microorganism. 

Here you might have a condition of the Saiga, either becoming the petri dish of its own death or coming in contact with the murderous suspect.

The questions are, when did the Saiga run afoul of the causative agent that facilitated mass deaths in a population? Why did no one collect data from previous die-offs to compare variables?

Suspect #1: Polymicrobial disease

Suspect #2: Environmental factors

Suspect #3: ALIENS!

Suspect #4: the Government!

Suspect #5 the Cigarette Smoking Man

In the no-so-far-away past, the suspects were rural poverty facilitating hunting and poaching, Chinese markets demand for meat and horns, and war-mongering endeavors.

I began to think the Saiga could become a ghost species. A ghost species is an animal that is believed to have a large population number. In reality the number falls, and every route used to save the species from extirpation is a failure. No matter what, it is going to become extinct. 

Considering the large population number of the Saiga, in a short period of time, that massive number can be rendered down to zero, in record time. If it is an environmental factor, and a selected group of animals are not moved to another location to thrive, one day, all of them could be gone, in one fatal swoop. It makes you wonder when the conditions are going to be right for the mass death of human beings, excluding biological warfare.

I have seen hunters online, flaunting the great number of species that can be hunted, yet given the right condition, something as small an unassuming as a bacteria or virus, can become one of the biggest killers without even loading a gun. I reflect on scientists chirping, “Humans as Super Predator”. Somewhere out there, a germ is laughing in its pants at how ridiculous this idea is. On the back of its little germ car, there are stickers that reads, “Ebola on board”, “Black Plague, We Are Still Here” and “The Grateful Dead”.

The more important perspective or lesson here is realizing large herds of animals can be decimated down to endangered numbers or zero members fairly quickly given the facilitator of destruction.

We take for granted that Saiga will always be there. We take for granted that a lot of things will be there tomorrow, wherever they are. A massive die-off illustrates you are not promised anything. Saiga die-off illustrates the need for a more prudent inspection and monitoring of life on Earth and how human behavior is affecting human and non-human life.

If you have ever studied immunology or microbiology, you come to realize that there are certain conditions that only have to vary a little or a lot, before you can have a mass growth of some bacteria, virus, or germ. This could be in a petri dish. All it takes is the right conditions. 

The worrisome part is the reality of a vast landscape with no boundaries, other than a migrating beast, where something can be incubating inside the body or outside in the ecosystem, and move from place to place, infecting or not infecting as it goes. There are cases of germs, viruses, and bacteria zombifying organisms to do their bidding for survival.

The things you find.

This is probably unrelated but I found one literature source that reported former Soviet biological weapons facilities in Kazakhstan. I wondered if something is perpetuating from these facilities. This information was noted from the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Moneterey Institute of International Studies, 1999. It seemed there was mass death of fish and animals in those areas. They were moving people out of these areas. It is what it is. You never know but rule that variable out.

As far as the final reports on the causative agent of Saiga death during this massive die-off, I will wait to see what the scientists uncover.

This illustrates the connectedness of humans to animals. What if you purchased your Elk hunting license, then the first week of hunting, was faced with reports of a massive Elk die-off. Would that freak you out? What if during a Great Migration, animals fell in their tracks along a wildlife corridor, with everyone snapping photographs? Would this make a hunting participant learn not to take a hunted animal for granted, or would you just move on to the next?

Another perspective would be the idea that life is moving forward in time, on a branched timeline. As we watch more animals become extinct, eventually humans will go the same route. How can one not feel their mortality, when we watch species disappear, one after another?

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

The Responsibility of Knowledge and Being a Proactive Person Who Hunts.

Remember this: Think safety first. No wild game animal is worth death. Besides,  who is going to take care of your family?

When hunting participants go afield, they are resolute on the job at hand to procure meat and being happy at the prospect of getting out in nature, bonding with others, or finding private time for thoughts and actions.

Taking care of the necessary safety precautions that go along with an outdoor sport, especially one that involves a tool such as a gun, there are unforeseen and imminent dangers that can’t really be planned for. These imminent dangers could be in the minuteness of mucus or body wastes excreted from wildlife upon handling. This will be the focus of the following conversation.  As a thoughtful and discerning huntress, I thought to give an inspection of facts or thoughts on how contamination of disease through wild game contact could affect the hunting participants, personally and the sport itself. I do not want to carry a Hazmat suite around with me where ever I go.

Disease transference should always be figured into the safety precautions of the hunting participant. Disease contamination by wild game can take a period of germination before symptoms are immediate. Death is not reversible and disease can disable you the rest of your life.

A main opportunity for harm to befall a hunting participant is the moment when the hunting participant comes in contact with the environment and the wild animals that occupy that space.

When hiking the terrain to find the honey spot, where would-be game browse, there is always the opportunity to look around while noting potential sources of disease, such as dead animal carcasses that seem otherwise not out the ordinary.  At no point, should you handle a dead carcass. These findings can be reported to the local Department of Natural Resources if you reside in the United States. These agencies should have special training for handing potential biological hazards.  With respect for foreign countries, look for local agencies that are available.

Ecosystems persist through a form of self-regulation but the activities of modern man, such as agriculture, urbanization, and product resource extraction with limited replacement, have a varying degree of impact depending on location and excess. Unstable ecosystems in flux may at times generate a pathogen in mass, given the conditions are right, that can break out in a wild game population or jump from one infected animal to a completely different species based on mutation and opportunity.

What does a hunting participant do when they are presented with a potential life threatening hazard that could be translated to a public domain?

The discerning huntress/hunter should always keep this in mind in the event of possible exposure:

·         Do not touch dead animals, approach aggressive animals, or near death animals.

·         Keep current on scientific data based around the specific game you hunt but always know a little about all kinds of wild game.

·         Know the early signs of wildlife zoonotic infections that are dangers to the huntress/hunter.

·         Learn practical advice by contacting your State Wildlife Agencies for current literature or speak to a wildlife biologist that is employed for this specific purpose.

·         Learn different techniques in handling wounded, dead or compromised wild game to reduce exposure. Wear goggles, gloves, or mask. You never know what it might be because that is the stealth of disease. Disease can be almost invisible it is so small or unassuming.

·         Know which domesticated animals can cross contaminate wild game or vice versa.

·         Do not be afraid to reach out to Wildlife biologists. Veterinarians are great but limit their knowledge over time with the practice they participate in unless you specifically utilize a Wildlife Veterinarian.

·         Compare notes with other hunting participants.

The causes of these compromising positions of hunting participant contact with potentially infected through wild game are:

·         Climate Change

·         Human population explosions

·         Global Human Travel

·         Wildlife Trade (legal and illegal)

·         Changes in land-use patterns

·         Deforestation where previous isolated wild game are now exposed.

·         Hunting Tourism

What should you do if you or our fellow hunting participants should be potentially exposed:

·         Always keep the body or find the animal before it wanders off. Having the reservoir of disease is the best evidence against pin pointing what disease is actually present.

·         Wash your hands; cover your mouth, nose, wounds and eyes, which are potential portals of infection. Change your clothes and wash them or trash bag them. The clothes might need to be burned if no longer useful to you or a doctor.

·         Immediately go to a hospital or present yourself to a health care provider if physical damage has been done to your person or if symptoms suddenly appear. Even if you feel like you are bothering someone----do yourself a favor and irritate them until you are seen. It might save your life or someone else’s. Be safe not dead and stupid. Always keep in mind that not everyone sees the gravity of a situation until several more people are infected or exposed.

·         Get proper treatment and follow that treatment. If there is a side effect of prescribed treatment refer back to your attending physician.

Potential diseases hunting participants contact, on terrain when either field dressing or interacting in close quarters with wild game or animals, should be explored:

•  Rabies: Any animal that acts sick, at times aggressive but can look listless and ‘dumb’.
• Tularemia: Cottontail rabbits, black-tailed rabbits, snowshoe hares, beaver, and muskrat.
• Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome-dead animal bodies, deer mice, rodents.
• Psittacosis: Waterfowl, herons, and pigeons which are the most affected but not limited to other species of avian. Can also be upland game birds, shorebirds, gulls, terns, and songbirds.
• Good Ole Plague: fleas from rodents
• Baylisascaris: Raccoon parasite; Potential source is sitting at the base of a tree while turkey hunting where the raccoon would pass his feces.
• Encephalitits; deer, birds, rodents and variety of mosquitos.
• Alveolar Echinococcosis caused by tapeworm Echinococcus multilocularis. Hosts: Red Fox, Arctic Fox, coyotes.
• West Nile for anyone going into a mosquito ridden country as a tourist hunter. If you are a huntress/hunter/ trapper should wear gloves when handling or cleaning animals. Cook meat thoroughly.
• Tick-borne disease;  Rickettsia ricketsii, Babesia, Lyme disease, Erylichia chaffeensis (white tail deer), Borrelia burgdorferi, and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.
• Pseudomonas; any animal where mucus secretions exist.
• Salmonella-waterfowl
• Escherichia coli
• enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli-ruminants
• Trichinella

After reviewing these points in brief, we soon discover there is more to be conscious of when going afield. Once again as a public servant, the hunting participant acts as a potential first contact to a landscape, and observations that could potentially waylay an outbreak of disease to animals or humans. While afield, one must keep their wits about them. Do not take what is perceived as harmless death via Mother Nature and move it  to one of potential threat to wildlife and human populations. As humans, we get too comfortable in our own mortality. Neither do we want to live in fear. Being a proactive sportsman, a public servant, and being responsible by self-educating ourselves as adults that hunt with current literature, seminars, and contacting agencies, will help avoid unassuming moments of relative ease that can turn into nights in a hospital bed fighting for your life. 

*cough, you know who you are*

As a huntress that loves to prudently hunt, I feel being a public servant to remind other hunting participants of potential threats, is one of the best day’s business I could do for free.

~Courtesy of the AOFH~