CWD Discovery In Alabama — Dark Clouds, But The Sky Isn’t Falling

Glass half full, or the sky is falling. Are you a pessimist or optimist? 

Most of the time, my eyes are wide open to how great we have it in this country, in this state, in my neck of the woods where I live, and in my home. 

Lest I be accused of being a hopeless optimist, I’m also very much aware that certain aspects of life and society these days are quite concerning. Yet the Braves won a World Series and the Dawgs won a National Title, and there’s water in the duck swamp, venison in the freezer. 

They say it’s easier to be an optimist if you have a plan for when all hell breaks loose. Let’s hope our wildlife folks have a plan. I trust they do.

Lest you been living under a rock, you know Chronic Wasting Disease was found in Alabama. More accurately, CWD was found in one deer in extreme northwest Alabama along the Tennessee-Mississippi line. That’s still a long way from Georgia, but it is cause to raise our eyebrows yet again. 

If you own hunting property in that northwest Alabama county, suffice to say all hell just broke loose. The state of Alabama created a CWD Management Zone there, and they just did away with all deer limits and antler restrictions. Hunters can literally kill every deer they see until Feb. 10, including on four WMAs. 

Imagine if that happened in Georgia, let’s say in Jasper County, and it affected all private land in Jasper and bordering counties, plus B.F. Grant, Cedar Creek, the Oconee National Forest and Piedmont Refuge.

There are quite a few sportsmen who scoff at CWD, about whether it’s already everywhere and about what it actually does to deer once they get it. Part of that skepticism comes from mistakes made by other states when they first found CWD that caused distrust. 

Regardless of what you believe about CWD, I can guarantee you one thing. If it is found somewhere in Georgia, the impacts on landowners and deer hunters in that area will be profound. Still, I trust that Georgia won’t follow the “wipe out all the deer” path that Wisconsin attempted after their first CWD positive test result. That’s a case study on how not to react.  

The natural spread of CWD isn’t fast like a wildfire. It’s a slow progression, and it’s still a long way from Georgia. It’s been said that if CWD comes to Georgia, it will get here on a truck. That means either an infected deer killed by a hunter who brings the carcass back, and somehow CWD makes it into the environment and a wild deer gets infected. Georgia already has regulations making it illegal to bring a deer carcass here from a CWD positive area. For a hunter, is it too much of an inconvenience to follow the regulations and properly take care of an animal from another state before bringing back the meat and maybe a trophy for the taxidermist? 

The more likely ‘truck scenario’ of CWD getting to Georgia is how it likely spread across the country—a live whitetail, infected with CWD, that was bought from a game farm breeder and brought to Georgia… also illegal here.

Am I concerned about CWD? Dang right. We don’t want it in Georgia. If you know anyone willing to threaten deer hunting as we know it today by bringing in a live deer, call DNR. If you’re hunting out of state, take care of that carcass and parts before you bring the meat and a trophy home.

The optimist in me says if CWD is found in Georgia, we have decades of history on our side. It’s not like some crazy Chinese virus popped up overnight, and everyone with some power overreacted after their heads spun around three times.

We have decades of what other state agencies did and did not do when they found CWD. There is documentation—peer-reviewed by scientists—of actions that absolutely did not work out well. And there are dozens of states, case studies, of what our deer hunting future would like decades after the first positive CWD test result. Lots of smart people are looking at how to prevent the spread of CWD and how to best deal with it when it’s found.

The best news is that there has never been a documented case of a hunter being infected with CWD after eating a deer. Not one. CWD was first documented in 1967. It’s been in dozens of states for decades. 

There are some dark clouds, but the sky is not falling.