
Rise of the Zombie Deer - mooreds
https://thecompost.io/archive/rise-of-the-zombie-deer
======
tylerjwilk00
I too find this disease terrifying.

Hunting of white tail deer is very popular where I am from. Everyone has
family members who hunt and stock up on venison. It's very common for people
to share their meat with friends and neighbors and cook venison around a camp
fire. Many harvested deer have been tested and confirmed infected for at least
a decade now. Most people do not get their deer tested. Certain WMU (wildlife
management units) are mandated that all kills be tested. Also most people
field dress their own deer which means lots of blood and fluids from the deer
on their hands and clothes.

I have seen a CWD deer in the wild not far from my house. It was scrawny and
shaking with the strangest look on its face [1] just walking down the middle
of the road. Very abnormal behavior for a deer. It's just a matter of time
before it jumps to humans.

Joe Rogan actually covered CWD on one of his podcasts [2] with a few
biologists as guests. You can find videos [3] of CWD on YouTube.

1\.
[https://www.thenews.com.pk//assets/uploads/updates/2019-02-1...](https://www.thenews.com.pk//assets/uploads/updates/2019-02-10/430256_4594270_deer_updates.jpg)

2\.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHOUpczwcyA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHOUpczwcyA)

3\.
[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cwd+deer](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cwd+deer)

~~~
Eire_Banshee
`It's just a matter of time before it jumps to humans.`

... thats not how that works.

~~~
dnautics
Actually the parent is correct. "That's not how it works". Specifically deer
prions (but not other cervids like elk) don't seem to be transmissible to
cows, both in the lab and in the wild, and not to mice or humans in the lab.
It goes in both ways IIRC, cows nor mice can't go to deer.

~~~
Scaevolus
Here's a citation for that:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4981193/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4981193/)

If it appeared to be transmissible to humans, there would be much stronger
recommendations against eating venison, like with prion diseases in cows.

------
GlenTheMachine
OTOH, possibly the oldest known prion disease is scrapie, which has been known
in sheep for centuries. Scrapie, unlike BSE, does not appear to be
communicable to humans. But: susceptibility to scrapie is highly genetic and
easily tested for. Most shepherds in the US are doing genetic testing and
selecting specifically for genetic immunity in their flocks. My own flock is
about 75% fully immune, with the remainders having one of the two genes
needed, which makes them highly resistant but not completely immune.

To me this seems indicative that there could well be pharmaceutical treatments
for prion disease. They just haven’t been a big enough problem to really
address yet.

It also _may_ indicate that genetic resistance could quickly spread through
deer populations once the disease starts exerting enough evolutionary
pressure.

~~~
awakeasleep
The disease will never exert strong evolutionary pressure as the symptoms
start appearing well after deer will have reproduced.

~~~
GlenTheMachine
No, the disease starts exhibiting symptoms after 2-3 years. Deer average five
years and can live for up to ten years in the wild, and are reproductively
active that entire time. So there is definitely some evolutionary pressure; a
deer infected at age 1 year would be expected, on average, to have less than
half the offspring of a healthy deer.

------
jatsign
It's not unusual to see deer around my house in the DC suburbs in VA(way
beyond the zone depicted in the map), but we had a young one acting strangely
last summer. It was just standing there, and wouldn't run if your approached
it. It was very thin.

A neighbor called animal control, who came out and diagnosed this disease.
They had to put the deer down, right there in the middle of the suburbs, which
alarmed many neighbors.

~~~
jayashe
fellow nova suburbanite here [vienna]

the degree to which deer have become comfortable around humans in the area in
the last 5 years is incredible. I can be feet away from them on a jog and they
won't flinch. I guess that's what happens when your only predator is a car

~~~
eru
No coyotes and wolves around?

~~~
Bartweiss
Coyotes will take deer, but they're not that quick to target healthy adult
deer. In the suburbs, they generally end up in smaller packs going after both
garbage and scrubland prey like rabbits, so they're not an especially good
check on white-tailed deer. (Wolves would be, but then they're not going to be
allowed to stay in most suburbs.)

------
stevepotter
I bow hunt deer in New Jersey. Hunting is sacred to me and I do it for the
meat. It's great to see this shared here. CWD can be contained. Most hunters
are aware of it and are doing their part to fight CWD. If you don't hunt, a
simple way to help is to call the police on the off chance you see a deer
acting strangely.

~~~
joecool1029
We're screwed if it makes it into NJ. Deer population density is too high to
contain it here.

My family has a 50 acre farm in the northwest part of the state and hunters
usually take up to 20 deer per hunting season. I used to count herds of up to
50 deer roaming the hay fields in summer.

Wolves are not an option in NJ and while coyotes have come back I don't think
they take down deer.

~~~
markbnj
I live in North-central NJ and they literally wander down the middle of the
road in herds.

~~~
stevepotter
Where I live, we have a deer problem but houses are too close to hunt. I drive
to my folk's place about an hour away to do it. Some towns hire professionals
to take some out, but it's expensive. The meat does go to feeding the homeless
though. I'd happily pay for the ability to hunt right in my town. It can be
done safely.

~~~
tomohawk
We have way too many deer in our suburban area. It's technically possible to
legally hunt in the area, but not practical. The permissions and everything
else you need to get are way too onerous. The level of knowledge about the
need to manage the deer herd for safety, public health, and deer health is
just not there. Every fall the roads are stained with redish brown stains of
deer being hit by cars. People get hurt or killed, and their cars get damaged.

Instead, this beneficial activity has been driven underground. We hear the
deer being poached at night (when the poachers are using rifles). I imagine
the more stealthy poachers are using crossbows.

~~~
LyndsySimon
I doubt anyone is regularly poaching with crossbows. Following a blood trail
at night _sucks_ , and while it’s definitely possible to kill cleanly and
humanely with a bow, the deer typically has the ability to run for a few dozen
yards at least.

Most poached deer where I am (Arkansas) are taken with small-caliber rifles -
mostly .22 LR, but some .22 Mag and .17 HMR. They’re still loud but not nearly
as loud as a centerfire rifle cartridge. They’re also generally extremely
accurate and inexpensive.

------
jbogie
It is scary, but at the same time can be managed. Some of the best information
at this time comes from a gentleman named Bryan Richards. More info here:

[https://www.themeateater.com/listen/meateater/ep-070-chronic...](https://www.themeateater.com/listen/meateater/ep-070-chronic-
wasting-disease)

and

[https://www.themeateater.com/conservation/policy-and-
legisla...](https://www.themeateater.com/conservation/policy-and-
legislation/three-bills-whitetail-hunters-should-watch)

------
dsfyu404ed
I expect in a few years that map[1] from the article will have to be updated
to make the northeast very red. Natural predators are long gone and except for
northern New England there is tons of governmental red tape to discourage
hunting so deer populations tend to hover around the maximum the environment
can support. I expect that since the disease has broken into upstate NY it
will quickly move throughout the rest of the region.

[1][https://thecompost.s3.us-
west-2.amazonaws.com/newsletters/20...](https://thecompost.s3.us-
west-2.amazonaws.com/newsletters/2019-02-25/cwd-map.jpg)

~~~
tomohawk
Coywolves have just started moving into the suburban and urban east coast
areas.

[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/coywolves-are-
taki...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/coywolves-are-taking-over-
eastern-north-america-180957141/)

We've seen a few around. I remember coyotes from when I lived out west and
these are quite a bit different.

It'll be interesting what happens as they become more numerous. They are a lot
more adaptable and flexible than coyote.

------
zeigotaro
CWD has essentially wiped out the elk populations of SW Colorado. There was an
research center in that area dedicated to breeding CWD-resistant elk, but it
shut down in 2016.

More info:
[https://durangoherald.com/articles/1824](https://durangoherald.com/articles/1824)

------
cmurf
At least in Wyoming and Colorado, overpopulation due to lack of predators has
everything to do with ranchers killing those predators. Conservationists tell
us the overpopulation either needs a sharp shooter's bullet to cull the herds,
or we need more wolves and therefore wolves need protection from being shot by
ranchers. And ranchers pretty thus far almost always win that contest.

What gets my goat is finicky meat eaters who somehow think they're entitled to
a) beef and b) inexpensive beef. There's ton of game, in these two states,
that eat plants which are basically inedible weeds to humans. Which is another
thing that gets my goat, are vegetarians who want to rip out entire ecological
systems to plant non-native plants so humans have food. Simple solution for
all of our pest problems: eat more indigenous meat!

But then I look at this zombie map and I think, ugh. We've poisoned the well!
Congratulations humans! You protected the cattle industry for so long that the
native herds are contradicting disease you probably don't want to be eating.

~~~
floren
I sympathize with a lot of your points, but take heart! People still harvest
and eat deer in CWD-infected areas, they just test the deer before eating. If
you get an infected deer, you destroy the meat and, I guess, take solace in
knowing you removed an infected animal from the landscape.

------
deogeo
> For example, prions in an infected deer's feces could bind to soil taken up
> by plants, spread to its leaves, then infect another deer that eats the
> leaves.

Terrifying. How old is this disease, and why is it only spreading now?
Actually, there's not much in the article on the rate at which the infection
is spreading - does anyone know more?

~~~
justusthane
It is terrifying. For something even more terrifying, check out prion diseases
in humans...Fatal Familial Insomnia, for one.

[https://medium.com/@arifakhtar/dying-to-sleep-the-waking-
nig...](https://medium.com/@arifakhtar/dying-to-sleep-the-waking-nightmare-of-
fatal-familial-insomnia-874126b43c3a)

~~~
hokumguru
CJD is the more common prion disease in humans and arguably even more
terrifying.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creutzfeldt–Jakob_disease](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creutzfeldt–Jakob_disease)

~~~
Sir_Vival
Not so fun fact - the medication HCG is derived from human urine and can
possibly pass CJD on. There is no warning on the label, and since CJD takes
20-30 years to kill you once infected we don't really know yet if it's a
problem or not.

And I took it for years.

~~~
scottlocklin
Somehow I had assumed such things were produced using recombinant DNA, but I
guess only one brand does it this way.

I'm kind of mind boggled at the concept of pregnant women selling their urine
to medical companies. How does this work?

~~~
mftrhu
Both Progynon and Emmenin, the first forms of estrogen used (1928-29), were
extracted from the urine of pregnant women. The material for Progynon was
initially collected in a Berlin's clinic by Shering [1], and the urine needed
for Emmenin was presumably sourced through similar channels. [2] mentions how
the supply was scarce, as only women in low-income groups were interested in
collecting it, and only while other sources of income were not available.

By 1941-1942 they had moved away from human urine to PREgnant MARe urINe, and
Premarin was born.

[1]
[https://books.google.it/books?id=Z3iTsU6_mHsC&pg=PA119&redir...](https://books.google.it/books?id=Z3iTsU6_mHsC&pg=PA119&redir_esc=y)

[2]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1661006/?page=2](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1661006/?page=2)

------
oldjokes
We had to shoot these "omg zombie" deer with CWD in our backyard in the 50s,
just seems like nobody really measured it or panicked about it back then.

Is CWD more or less prevalent than it was in the past? The article fails to
even ask this question as you'd expect from the title, it just sort of weaves
some other irrelevant wikipedia info into clickbait hysteria.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
To actually spread and not just maintain a baseline of X% of the population a
prions disease needs to have a certain population density because it is
transmitted through contact with bodily fluids of infected individuals.

Deer predators have mostly been eradicated in the contiguous US so that leaves
humans and "the rest of nature" to control population density. In some areas
(e.g. southwest) the land simply cannot support the density of deer population
required for the disease to gain a good foothold in the deer population. In
other areas human hunting is what's holding the deer population density down.
Hunting has become a lot less popular since the 1950s and 1960s and the
available places to do it has also dwindled so once CWD gets in it rapidly
expands among the local population. See for example the massive red blotches
on the map in the Chicago and DMV areas, places nobody is hunting deer so
they're free to breed up to whatever population density the environment can
support, a density high enough to permit the spread of a prions disease.

Assuming the current path I would expect to see CWD spread throughout most of
the more heavily (deer) populated parts of the US and infect whatever % of the
deer population it can given the local population density. There's a lot of
untapped potential on the east coast.

~~~
stcredzero
_In other areas human hunting is what 's holding the deer population density
down. Hunting has become a lot less popular since the 1950s and 1960s and the
available places to do it has also dwindled so once CWD gets in it rapidly
expands among the local population._

In that case, legislation which seems primarily crafted to annoy and alienate
gun owners might have the unexpected consequence of increasing the spread of
CWD.

------
rrggrr
My dog likes to roll around in deer excrement (well any poop she can find
actually). I would imagine prion shredding is rampant in that stuff, right?

------
Causality1
>which cause the brain cells of an infected animal to fold improperly and
clump together

It causes proteins in the brain to fold improperly and clump together, not
brain cells.

------
DiseasedBadger
We need more wolves and less suburbs. Or at least more hunters.

Deer are out of control. They're being chased out out every development around
here.

In the midlights, they commute to all the business parks. I guess for the
lawns around the office buildings.

There's tons of them, and they don't all look so good. I imagine they're
facing trash, exhaust, and fertilizer, all day every day.

We have too many little developments and too few predators.

------
scruple
Terrifying. Knowing nothing about this at all, I am curious if insects that
feed on blood like ticks or mosquitoes can carry or transmit CWD.

~~~
mobilefriendly
Also curious how it is transmitted through vegetation. The article mentions
that's how deer spread it to each other, but deer are also constantly raiding
human crops as well.

------
pvaldes
The "Spiroplasma triggering cascade of prions" theory from Frank Bastian is
pretty interesting.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_O._Bastian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_O._Bastian)

~~~
selimthegrim
Hmm, it looks like he is going to drop his institutional affiliation entirely
when he moves to New Orleans.

------
analog31
CWD is a big deal here in Wisconsin. From what I've read, one factor in
spreading the disease is when people put out salt and feed to attract deer.
This causes the deer to congregate together and increase the chance of it
spreading from one deer to another. There are kill zones within miles of my
house where they're trying to eradicate the entire deer population.

------
matthieubrg
That's the scenario for 'A train to Busan'...just
saying...[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hKlqRd0X7A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hKlqRd0X7A)

------
jonnycomputer
I wonder if the increase in cwd is exacerbated by a lack of predation and a
decrease in the ability to migrate long distances. Migration by non-fliers is
severely constrained these days.

------
lr4444lr
Isn't this only communicable if you eat or handle the brains of the infected
animals? How does a disease that only attacks the brain wind up in the feces
or other excreta?

------
neodypsis
I once ate deer meat in Sweden. Do you know if deer populations in Scandinavia
are infected as well? Should I be worried?

~~~
moufestaphio
Did you read the article?

>It's been reported in 24 US states so far, as well as Canada, Norway,
Finland, and South Korea.

But to answer your question: No.

0 known human cases, only possible in theory. Read the article for more info
;)

------
markbnj
> cooking temperatures are not nearly high enough to kill prions

Are prions alive in that sense? Can you kill a protein?

~~~
irrational
I've read that sterilizing surgical equipment will not remove human prions
from the equipment, so they can be passed on to the next person that is
operated on by that equipment. Apparently they are nearly impossible to remove
without destroying the equipment.

------
api
Prion disease is terrifying and probably under-studied and under-prepared-
for...

~~~
Nasrudith
It is terrifying certainly but I am not sure about understudied. We have
studied them and found it just pretty lacking in countermeasures for deformed
proteins - including avoidance because they are hard to detect. The whole
field is hard.

Theoretically better protein understanding may allow for lack of better words
"antigens" which bind to prions to make something harmless while not acting
like prions in themselves but that would be one very big computational space
and would call for a vast array to compare.

------
JumpCrisscross
> _prions in an infected deer 's feces could bind to soil taken up by plants,
> spread to its leaves, then infect another deer that eats the leaves_

How persistent are these things in nature? If there is selection pressure,
they could be subject—unlike _e.g._ cancer—to evolution.

------
abruzzi
is "zombie deer virus" a new term? I've known about CWD (and CJD, mad cow, and
scrapie) for a long time but this is the first time I've heard it referred to
as zombie deer virus.

