Mad deer

This year there was some good news for hunters in the USA. Wisconsin's Department of Natural Resources expanded the annual hunting season for white‐tailed deer—usually from early November to early December—and allowed hunting in some Southern counties to start as early as late summer. For the past few months, amateur hunters and state sharpshooters have lurked in bushes and forests shooting at anything with antlers and a white tail. There is one drawback, however: hunters are not allowed to keep the venison or even a trophy pair of antlers as all cadavers must be turned over to state officials.White‐tailed deer![][1] The aim of this state‐sanctioned mass slaughter, as some critics put it, is to kill more than 25 000 white‐tailed deer. It was prompted by concerns that chronic wasting disease (CWD), a transmissible spongiform encephalitis (TSE) that is affecting the deer and elk population in the USA and Canada, could become endemic in the area. This measure was not met with enthusiasm from all sides. Many residents opposed the plan, fearing for the safety of their children and livestock in what some compared to a state of war in the 389 square mile ‘Eradication Zone’, and did not allow hunting on their land. But the aim is not necessarily to eradicate the disease in Southern Wisconsin—a futile goal given the dense deer population of 100 animals per square mile. ‘We don't know [if this would stop the disease] and they would agree in Wisconsin that they don't know either,’ said Elizabeth S. Williams from the University of Wyoming's Department of Veterinary Sciences. Rather, it is an attempt to curtail the disease before it becomes endemic, with the additional benefit of providing scientists with a large sample size of animals to investigate the epidemiology of CWD in the area, she … [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif