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The deer are full of Chronic Wasting Disease and we've half given up trying to stop it. Many states have stopped their targeted culling programs because they're ineffective once incidence is above 5%. You're suicidal if you eat meat that you know comes from an animal with a prion disease.

[stasomatic]

I've never hunted (yet). Have fished plenty but that doesn't count.

I lived for a year in a suburb of Charlotte NC a couple of years ago, and there were herds of whitetails on my dog walks.

I'd like to learn more about "Chronic Wasting Disease" if you have any resources, because on podcasts or r/Archery and the like, "harvesting your own food" is par for the course. Thank you.

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Decent overview from the US CDC https://www.cdc.gov/chronic-wasting/about/index.html in one study, Rhesus monkeys were infected by eating CWD infected meat. There's no cure or mitigation of prion diseases so that'd be enough for me to stay away from hunted deer in any county with reported incidence of it. And deer range and roam, and not every place in the country is as on top of testing for it as everywhere else. Maybe I'm Chicken Little, but I don't like the odds.

[stasomatic]

Thanks. Wild stuff, pun intended. Even though the article mentions “The disease hasn't been shown to infect people”, just the thought of a “maybe” is deterrent enough. But then, who knows what’s in the meat I’m getting from Costco. Perhaps the fish are next and the Soylent future is upon us.