montanagriz said:

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From Dr. Deer- i know, i can hear the gnashing of teeth now.

Regardless, share actual stats if you got them but thought this might be useful to those trying to be objective about the subject. That said, let the name calling begin

Dr. Deer
"I just received the CWD test data for the first half of 2024 for Texas. The breeder deer tested had a 0.81% apparent infection rate and the free-range deer 0.69%; hardly a rampantly occurring deer disease in anyone's objective book. CWD has been reported in Texas since 2012. Testing began in 2002, and since then 130 free range deer tested positive. Let's put all this into perspective. In the first half of 2024, for every 10,000 free range deer, that's about 70 deer. Thats only testing positive for CWD prions, not yet mortality. There are 54,000+ auto collisions annually in Texas, with high probability of at least one deer death per accident! The annual deer harvest in Texas in 2023-24 was 757,047! There are probably 6 million deer in Texas, and growing at an alarming rate, which negates concern for CWD decimating the herd after 12 years of known CWD occurrence!"

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I appreciate the post. I'm surprised there isn't more interest.

txags92 said:

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MrWonderful said:

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Comparing auto collision deer fatalities to CWD is a grossly bad faith argument. I don't speak for anyone other than myself, but I think that most outdoorsmen are not concerned about CWD in free range animals, as there is nothing to be done about that, the rate of contraction is low, and the rate of spread is lower.

I think most people are concerned about breeders creating hot beds of CWD, and transporting it to areas that would have taken decades, if ever to get to on its own.

Personally, I don't think a small group of people should get to monetize a resource (deer) in a way that jeopardizes a state-owned resource, and has the potential to permanently alter how that public resource is available to the public.

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In the short term you are correct, but in the long-term, you can end up with areas of concentrated CWD, like some areas of Wisconsin where the infection rate in mature bucks was over 50% in recent testing after Dr. Deer convinced them that they didn't need to do anything about it. And I think the rate of spread in the wild population here is likely to be higher since there are so many areas with concentration at feeders. Most of those free-range positives right now are happening in far west Texas and the panhandle where CWD has been present for many years in mule deer and elk in NM. We have started to see more free range detections in the areas where CWD first showed up in breeder deer (Medina, Uvalde, etc.) and I fully expect to see many more start showing up near the facility in Hunt that had hundreds of CWD positive deer when they finally depopulated that herd.

Dr. Deer's problem (if you want to be charitable to him) or schtick (if you don't), is that he cherry picks stats like that and pretends that they are statistically representative of equilibrium conditions in the wild and breeder herds. We have nowhere near enough free range testing to have any idea what the real numbers look like there. Given that outside of West Texas and the Panhandle, it has only been detected in free range deer in the last 10 years or so, we are nowhere near seeing the full extent to which it will spread naturally and the degree to which it will infect the wild herd. Using numbers from limited and targeted sampling now and assuming "this is as bad as it will get" is misleading and doesn't paint the full picture...which is either a failing of Dr. Deer or his intent, depending on who you think he is trying to protect.

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Never mind, I know how this will go.

You'll notice I deleted the comment. I've learned from back and forth with you in the past that you won't ever recognize fault when it comes to the agency you work/worked for.

Have a good day.

If that is the message you have taken from past interactions you have dramatically misunderstood me. TPWD has botched the response to cwd in many ways, starting with their deviation from their agreed upon response plan (developed with Dr Deer's participation) to repeated positive detections. You and I may disagree on what exactly they are doing wrong, but I have no reluctance to criticize them for their cwd response. I would like to hear where you think they are cherry picking data to act, because my experience has general been that they are not trying to use the accumulated data to justify what they are doing.

Is there a large scale free range testing program - or is the free range testing that which is done in the CWD testing areas around the state?

INIGO MONTOYA said:

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Is there a large scale free range testing program - or is the free range testing that which is done in the CWD testing areas around the state?

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Tpwd will supposedly test any deer you ask them to. The trick is finding somebody to bring the deer to for testing They have check stations around all of the surveillance areas, but I have found the hours and availability can be really spotty because they are hiring to staff them as seasonal positions. I really wish they would just offer it as an option at all the processors and have them collect the tissue and turn it over to TPWD. We would get a much wider data sample to work with doing it that way.

I didn't know of one - except asking and the certain areas. I tried to get TPWD to test a dead deer - they couldn't get there in time but were willing to try if they could have.

1st half of 2024? Wonder How many deer in the free range pool that represented.

To compare data on a comprehensive testing program in controlled areas - to a testing program in specific free range areas where CWD has been found and to extrapolate that to an entire deer herd challenges my senses statistically.


Wonder what the testing ratio in pens would be if they only tested breeder areas with known cases? Oh yea - they killed all those deer.

INIGO MONTOYA said:

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To compare data on a comprehensive testing program in controlled areas - to a testing program in specific free range areas where CWD has been found and to extrapolate that to an entire deer herd challenges my senses statistically.


Wonder what the testing ratio in pens would be if they only tested breeder areas with known cases? Oh yea - they killed all those deer.

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Those kinds of issues are why I have a problem with Dr Deer or TPWD or anybody else trying to use the current data we have to come to firm conclusions about what kind of a risk CWD really is or isn't to the wild herd or to humans. All of the current data sets and the studies based on them are beset with problems caused by selection bias in the data. If you only test deer in areas where there is already known to be some risk, you are not getting the full picture of what the free range numbers are statewide. A lot of people are not going to submit their deer for testing under normal circumstances, but will submit them if the deer is acting funny before they shoot it or looks not well after they get to it and see it up close. That ends up biasing that dataset even further.

Same thing applies to breeder data. If you are only testing deer they are wanting to transport, then you are going to miss deer that look sick, because nobody is going to spend money on breeder der that look sick, skewing the infection rate lower. On the other hand, in places where breeders are required to test every deer they kill, the numbers may be skewed the other direction if they are shooting deer that look sick or are not developing as fast as others around them (i.e. culling).

In Wisconsin, one of the problems they have run into is that at some point they stopped trying to test all deer and only wanted to test deer from areas that were known to be hot spots or deer that looked sick. So comparing the newer data with the old data shows a huge skew upwards that is caused by data bias more than rampant spread of CWD. No doubt they have a widespread problem, but data selection issues are making it harder to track over time due to changes in selection methods.

Without a truly random collection methodology (which will be expensive to pursue), selection bias, and selective testing will continue to make the data set hard to use for anything conclusive. In the end, Dr. Deer and his cohorts may be right, but the data we have right now are in no way sufficient to try to draw the conclusions they are making.

SanAntoneAg said:

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Yet another.

https://tpwd.texas.gov/newsmedia/releases/?req=20250110a

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I heard about the one in Brown County but I don't know which ranch it was on.

I am so glad that for 29 years, while I had our high fence place, I had made the decision to never bring in or purchase an outside whitetail on the get go. I don't believe the man who bought it has either.

montanagriz said:

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That said, let the name calling begin

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Fight me!

1990Hullaballoo said:

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So, let's take his numbers and assume they are correct.

If 757,047 deer were harvested and there is a 0.069% infection rate detected (doesn't take into account the ones people don't test) - that means there are 5224 deer that were taken that were infected. Now, considering the "small" geographical area CWD has been detected in, that is a high percentage for animals harvested in the affected areas. I would like to see them put the results in that form to give it a truer depiction of how the "wild" animals are being affected, not using numbers from across the entire state.

As someone who hunts close to and in an affected area, that seems like more of a gamble than what his gaslighting numbers show.

Also, I do not believe there was ever a great concern that CWD would wipe out the deer population. The numbers for it's cousins in sheep and goats (scrapies) bears that out. So the deer deaths due to vehicle strikes is just a distraction and really has no significance to this topic.

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What Kroll doesn't ever discuss is the location of infected deer, especially in relation to one another (free range versus breeder) and the fact that almost every single instance of free range infection has been in the same county or directly adjacent to a county with breeder facilities that have tested positive prior to any free range testing positive.

There is a correlation and it is easily seen when you put it on a map. He talks in broad numbers and always references in statewide geographic area to avoid this aspect of the discussion.

Who is Dr. Deer?

Dr. James C Kroll

Former professor at SFA and now private wildlife consultant (looks like).

Baylor BS & MS
A&M PhD

Thanks for that summary. I don't hunt in counties that deal with CWD, so I'm kinda ignorant on the subject.

Has APHISAG ever chimed in on any of these threads?

I don't recall seeing any input from him.

The knowledge I have has mostly been gleaned from teaching biology and anatomy & physiology, but I aslo learned much from an APHIS employee who used to check on the plant I used to run. He was responsible for overseeing control efforts of infectious diseases in livestock across most of the state. Most of his time was spent in the panhandle trying to keep a handle on the TB outbreak that is perpetual in the panhandle area dairies and feed lots. I trust his judgement explicitly in this area as he deals with this type of thing on a daily basis.

I would like to see what the APHIS folks have to say about our state plan/program.

txags92 said:

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DargelSkout said:

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Who is Dr. Deer?

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I was kind of joking with the Joker gif, and kind of not. He is unquestionably an expert in deer management and has done a ton of research in how to maximize the quality of a deer herd. I respect him for that knowledge and expertise when it comes to how to manage a property and a deer herd on it.

But when it comes to CWD, he is a bit of a controversial figure

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I mean, let's be clear. He's not the premier expert on CWD. He's the premier denier. He's been in bed with breeders for years. That was his research at SFA. Heck, he has his own deer breeding facility near Cushing.

When it became apparent that TPWD's stance and execution of their policies was going to undermine his pocketbook, he started spouting unsubstantiated rumers on facebook and everywhere else. Like his rumors a couple of years ago that TPWD was going to release prions into animal herds. There was no other source to that rumor than him. "Dr. Deer" was ground zero. But he just does whatever he can to discredit the real research and risks.

txags92 said:

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Prince_Ahmed said:

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txags92 said:

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DargelSkout said:

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Who is Dr. Deer?

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I was kind of joking with the Joker gif, and kind of not. He is unquestionably an expert in deer management and has done a ton of research in how to maximize the quality of a deer herd. I respect him for that knowledge and expertise when it comes to how to manage a property and a deer herd on it.

But when it comes to CWD, he is a bit of a controversial figure

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I mean, let's be clear. He's not the premier expert on CWD. He's the premier denier. He's been in bed with breeders for years. That was his research at SFA. Heck, he has his own deer breeding facility near Cushing.

When it became apparent that TPWD's stance and execution of their policies was going to undermine his pocketbook, he started spouting unsubstantiated rumers on facebook and everywhere else. Like his rumors a couple of years ago that TPWD was going to release prions into animal herds. There was no other source to that rumor than him. "Dr. Deer" was ground zero. But he just does whatever he can to discredit the real research and risks.

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I was trying to be somewhat even handed in giving both sides, but you will find no argument from me about what he really is. "Follow the money" works just as well in figuring out the motives in CWD advocacy as it does pretty much anywhere else in scientific research.

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I'm going from memory here, so I may be in error. BUT, I believe Ted Nugent laid into this pretty heavily on one of his appearances on Joe Rogan a few years ago. He was primarily talking about Michigan and their Dept of Natural Resources, not Parks and Wildlife but the thought would still apply.

I'm not trying to be argumentative. Please understand that. You say you know a "ton that do". Not calling you out as maybe you are a wildlife biologist and can quantify that. Perhaps you are involved in managing wildlife on ranches and if so, I certainly respect your comments greatly.
I know many high fence places who have never imported whitetails. Many don't concentrate on whitetails but rather on exotics. The whitetails are all left as native genetics to be managed to their potential and are a minor concern of many high fence ranches.
As an example… all five of my neighbors had high fences… all 1000- 3000 acres. None of them buy whitetails.
More high fence ranches do not buy whitetails than do.
I believe the Exotic Wildlife Association has done some surveys on landowners and have confirmed that.
There are not that many customers in reality for the whitetail breeders, imho. Seems If there were, there would be many more than there are trying to make money?