I don’t know but from what I have read Tennessee did not allow deer farming so it had to be a state facility if that is true. The article below dated 2012 talks about it being illegal and the state being a “closed boarder state” does anyone know if that was the case?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/noogatoday.6amcity.com/white-tailed-deer-for-sale/amp/

As some of you know I camp and hunt Freedom Hills heavy this time of year. but I will not participate in any of the deer slaughter, not even one little ole deer. There will be some dumb asses that will join in on the slaughter and then bitch for the next 20 years about not seeing any deer while hunting. Once you have your fun for a short time, the years to follow will be shitty.

If I’m not mistaken, the plan includes dept employees and contractors working to lower the population too.

There is a post on the Alabama Public Land & WMA’s FB page now saying it was a slaughter at Freedom Hills today. Reports of seeing as many as 7 or 8 deer in the beds of some trucks. Take it FWIW but this CWD response seems well on its way to accomplishing the goal of destroying the deer herd in that part of the state.

I'm sorry your wife's nephew died from CJD. From the info I've read about the disease that must have been horrible.


CWD has been known about for more than 50 years and people have eaten venison from CWD-infected deer for decades without any known issues. States where CWD is most prevalent -- upper midwest and midwest - they kill deer in known CWD areas and eat them.

Whether any legitimate medical research has been done on people who eat venison in areas with CWD or venison known to be from an infected deer, I have no idea. Not even sure if you could test something like that, other than taking samples of spinal fluid or cerebrospinal fluid. That's not an impossible test to do although getting a spinal tap damned sure isn't enjoyable, from those I've heard talk about it.

But if the CWD prions are believed to be spread via saliva and urine, it would seem possible perhaps that some kind of tests could be done on humans with urine, saliva, maybe spinal fluid, to see if the CWD prions are present. Or could be present.


Certainly a lot of unknowns about CWD.

This is totally false. I hunt very close to FH and there was very little shooting!

I can't imagine any state knowingly bringing in an infected deer for research, especially in a pathway like Hardin County where tornadoes could be prevalent (moving from SW to NE) and a fenced facility could be impacted in a storm. That would be insane. Tennessee's deer hunting may not be Kansas or Kentucky for giants but it's still a significant attraction from Bristol to Memphis. Intentionally harming it would be crazy.

Along your thoughts about a state facility, is the area where CWD was first identified close or not terribly far from UT-Martin? If so, does UTM have a whitetail or research program?

I don't know the terminology. Is "deer farming" the same as a private landowner having a high fence with deer just to hunt or enjoy, but not breed to sell? Private landowners having enclosures isn't illegal in Tennessee, is it?

I don’t know, from what I see back to 2011 it was illegal, no transport into the state without authorization by the state.

Good!

I hunted FH and heard as many shots as I've ever heard in a morning deer hunt.

I decided to screenshot the harvest yesterday morning before daylight so I could track it. Here's a comparison between harvest thru 1-7 and today as of 08:30AM.

I spoke with 2 people that hunted different areas yesterday morning at freedom hills. Both said they've never heard so much shooting in one day.

What they should have done, was did a mandatory CWD sampling for the rest of the season in Lauderdale County within a 3 sq mile buffer zone from where the infected CWD deer was found. Not an all out kill everything you see.

Post-season targeted culling is one of the only known methods to directly slow CWD growth in areas where CWD is not widely established, on public land and with participating landowners. Besides being an effective CWD management tool, targeted culling presents the opportunity to gather additional data, such as metrics of reproduction, to inform other aspects of local deer populations.The timing of conception is informative for hunters who want to focus their efforts on the time of peak rut in their area. Timing of parturition, or fawning, is also important for land managers who may alter their activities around this time to promote fawn survival. Other metrics, such as pregnancy rates, fetuses per pregnant female, and fetal sex ratio are all indications of herd health and important for informing projections of deer herd growth over time