A hunter skillfully downs a trophy buck. After admiring the beauty of the massive creature, before field dressing it, he reaches into his backpack and pulls out a Chronic Wasting Disease test kit. A new mandatory test, where the hunter must do a quick test to see if the animal he took tests positive for CWD. And then what?
Well, here we go. Here’s a case of a man-invented or man-spread disease, Chronic Wasting Disease, that all began in a government laboratory in Colorado. Today CWD has been tested positive in 26 states and now, officials are demanding that mandatory testing of harvested deer be implemented.
And for what reason? It is recommended that people do not eat CWD-infected meat. A mandatory field test would tell the hunter immediately if the animal is infected. Then what?
The test might prevent the hunter from dressing the deer and spreading the disease throughout the environment quicker than if you just left it to rot. Either way the contamination is there.
About the only advantage I can see is that a hunter might save himself/herself a lot of work before dressing and dragging a deer out of the woods and then waiting for test results before eating.
Then, if the test comes back positive, what’s the hunter to do with the contaminated meat?
While a required test might alert the hunter immediately of whether he/she has downed an infected animal, I see nothing here that would do much of anything to help stop the spread of the disease.
Maybe there isn’t anything that can be done. Perhaps we could require force feeding all contaminated meat to any and all government officials. They deserve it.
