12-10-23 - Jim & Scott Interview Dr. "Deer" James Kroll about the appearance of chronic wasting disease - Hour 1

A lively discussion about the impact of the disease, and dispells many of the fears associated with it.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
News Radio eight forty whas welcomes youto Jim Straighter Outdoors, the area's leading
authority on hunting and fishing. JimStraighter Outdoors is brought to you by Massioak
property's heart Reality. For the outdoorhome of your dreams. Call Paul Thomas
at two seven zero five two fournineteen eighty Linden Animal Clinic, your pet's

(00:21):
best Friend, Sportsmen's Taxidermy. Visitthem at Sportsmen's Taxidermy dot Com. An
Roth Heating and Cooling, a familyowned business with over one hundred years experience
in the Louisville area. Wildlife HabitatSolutions. Check Jim and his team on
Facebook at Wildlife Habitat Solutions and SMIMarine. Getting your boat back on the

(00:41):
water in no time. To joinin on the conversation, call us at
five seven one eighty four eighty fourinside Louisville and one eight hundred four four
four eighty four eighty four outside theMetro. Now, sit back and relax
and enjoy the next two hours ofJim Straighter Outdoors on news Radio eight forty.
W h A s the game fromthe West Virginia coal mines in the

(01:07):
Rocky mountains in the West. Twistin, I got a shotgun or rifle in
a fool wheel drive in A countryboy can survive. We just skin a
buck and run a truck line anda country by canon survived. Country folks

(01:30):
can survive. Hundred Good evening everyone. Jim Straighter here and we have a

(01:51):
special edition of Jim Strader Outdoors tonightbecause the Kentucky Department Official while I Resources
has announced the discovery of a caseof CWD chronic wasting disease in Ballard County,
Kentucky. The deer was harvested bya hunter opening weekend of the deer

(02:14):
season, and testing has revealed thatit tested positive for CWD. So we're
going to talk about CWD tonight,and I've asked one of the nation's pre
eminent experts on CWD, how thedisease is transmitted, what can be done

(02:37):
to help folks understand what it isand what it is not, And we're
going to give you the facts aboutCWD. I'm talking about doctor James Kroll,
who's nationally recognized as Doctor Deer.He has extensive experience in multiple states
dealing with CWD in all of itsaspects. We're delighted to have him on.

(03:02):
Scott cron and I will be talkingto him about many the aspects of
the disease and so stick with us. We're gonna get right down to it
with doctor Crowe. I'm gonna goto break here. This break is presented
by SMI Marine. Go see TimAnnington and his staff. He's got your
end specialists on a bunch of theboats over there, and they also are

(03:25):
taking down payments on the twenty twentyfour new models which are going to be
out shortly. So we'll be backafter the break. And remember you never
get soaked by my friends at SMI. I've been walking these streets singing the
scene. And we're back on JumpStraighter Outdoors and as promise, we're talking

(03:47):
with doctor James Crow, Doctor dare. We's been kind enough to return to
the program. We had him onseveral weeks ago about the facts about CWD.
If you didn't hear that program,it's available on podcast uh at on
the iHeart app or at spreaker sp R E A k e R dot

(04:09):
com. Doc welcome back to theprogram. Really appreciate you sitting in with
us. Proud Well, uh wecovered a lot of ground last time.
But I guess let's start with asyou're aware, Uh, there has been
a confirmed case according to the Department'stesting of CWD Invalid County, Kentucky.

(04:34):
It's our first one. And uhso there's a lot of questions people are
asking. Can we start with abrief overview for the folks for what it
is? And then I got acouple of questions I'd like to run by
you. Well. Kink wasting diseaseis part of a group of diseases known

(04:54):
as t S stands for transmissible spongeof farming epodes. Translation is that it
can be Uh you can catch itand it turns your brain to a sponge.
That's that's the way they defined it. And there are several species of
animals, including humans, who havetheir own unique types of that disease and

(05:16):
uh it when it's manifested itself inwhite tailed deer and the deer and el
Uh, it's been called chronic wasteand disease. Unfortunately, Uh, some

(05:36):
Doc, I've lost you can youhear me? Josie's still with us,
but he air dropped off. Doc, you dropped out there for a second.
We sorry, where did I dropout. Did you were talking about
the disease. M hm. Yeah, it's a It's one of the common

(06:01):
diseases that we find in a lotof species of mammals, and it's as
they all are, including the onesin humans. It's it's a fairly rare
disease, but it's being promoted.Is not a rare disease? Is that
highly infectious disease? And there's absolutelyno no scientific evidence that it is highly

(06:26):
infectious disease. It's a rare disease. I just got through analyzing the data
from every state that has reported andis testing for CWD, and with the
exception of a handful of counties insome states, it remains a rare disease.
Okay, uh, doctor. Thethree questions I'd like to ask are

(06:48):
ones that I posed to you before. The first one is, isn't it
true that CWD has been around fromfifty only fifty years, and it's never
decimated or shown great negative impact ondeer populations in any state where it's occurred.

(07:10):
Is that true? That is absolutelytrue. We've known about it since
the late nineteen sixties when it wasrecognized in a government research facility in Colorado,
and since then there has not beena single peeride view, credibleivitic study

(07:32):
that has shown that chronic wasting diseasehas caused any deer population, whether it
be white hols or mule deer,to decline. Okay, second question,
isn't it true that no human thathas had any illness or fatalities from CWD.

(07:54):
There's no cross in the humans andthere's not been any single case where
it has been any threat to humans. That's absolutely correct statement. Since that
time, there's been millions of pounds, maybe millions of tons of benison eaten
by human beings, and not asingle human being has contracted chronic wasting disease.

(08:18):
The CDC, when you go totheir website or when it shows up
in a state like it just didin Kentucky, lay you money without seeing
the press release. It has thestandard boiler plate that the cd CDC says
that humans have not been shown tobe able to contract chronic wasting disease.

(08:41):
However, they recommend that you don'teat a deer that is obviously ill,
which any hunter out there is notgoing to eat a deer that is obviously
unwell in the first place. Soyes, you're absolutely right. Not one
single scientific study has shown that.As a matter of fact, the opposite
is true. The excellent study doneat the University of California, San Diego

(09:07):
that showed that human beings have aunique resistance to chronic waste and disease.
And is that because this peculiar tothe serving families the deer family. Yes,
it's absolutely, it's it's unique toit. And we have a see

(09:28):
a treon they're caused by this diseaseis caused by aaberant treons. Uh.
We have these things called prions orproteins that run run around our nervous systems,
and there's debate about what they do. But initially what they do is
good, but when they become distarted, they can do damage to the nervous

(09:50):
system. But each each species outthere has got its own set of preons.
Okay, now, out there's allkinds of things that have been tried
in cases of CWD in various states, and I know you've been heavily involved

(10:15):
in Wisconsin and a consultant and manyof them. Can you share with the
audience what your experiences like that havebeen and what some of the pitfalls and
or successful strategies have been well,there haven't been any successful strategies. There's
not a single state out there thatusing the techniques that they keep using roadly

(10:43):
have had any impact at all onthe distribution of chronic waste disease. Now
you'll get an argument back from somefolks about that New York was able to
stop it. That was one deer, one deer, and there wasn't another
one, and then most recently onemore showed up. But there hasn't been

(11:05):
using these tech techniques that I calleddraconian, does it work? I mean
my work in Wisconsin and my twocolleagues that were on the committee with me,
we pointed out that they killed onehundred and seventy two thousand deer in
southern Wisconsin outside of the season,including spotted fawns, and after they got

(11:31):
through doing that, it had absolutelyno effect on the distribution of abundance of
chronic waste and disease, and asa matter of fact, heronically that their
populations in that area of increase.Okay, can you speak to the scarcity

(11:52):
of transmission again in a way thatfolks, I know you've run some figures
by me. That's a low percentage. I think you mentioned Missouri and some
other states in our conversations. Canyou tell folks what is a curd in
state? Oh yeah, let's takeMissouri where this one deer may have come

(12:13):
from or been influenced by that you'vegot in Kentucky. There By the way,
I've been expecting you to be callingme in and because I knew sooner
or later that Kentucky would find one. If you search for something long enough,
you're going to find it, andthey found it in a very logical
place. But Missouri, who's beensending out letters talking about depopulating, the

(12:35):
state wide infection rate is point oneseven percent. Point one seven percent.
Now, that's not exactly something thatwould cause you to set your hair on
fire, go running down the streetscreaming. That's that confirms what we're saying,
is that it is a rare disease. And additionally, it takes dear

(13:00):
years to succumb to that disease.Is that true? Yeah? Seventeen months
to four years is what folks aresaying now after exposure to the disease.
Uh Now, was what they wantto point out. Testing positive for CWD

(13:24):
prions is not the same as havingCWD disease. It's just your testing positive
that these animals, the vast majority, high numbers, high percentage is ninety
nine percent. Probably of animals thattest positive for the preons do not have
do not have clinical CWD. Theyare very healthy animals. You would not

(13:48):
tell them from any other animals.It's very difficult for anybody out there,
professionals or otherwise to find dear thatclinically died of chronic waste and disease.
Now, am I saying that deerdon't die from chronic waste disease? Absolutely
not. They certainly can, andsome of them probably do. But here's

(14:09):
the point. Generation time for whitetail deer is three and a half years.
What generation time is is how longit takes for the herd to turn
over. By the time a deercould become become clinical from CWD, it's
been killed and eaten by something fortwo years. And that's one of the

(14:30):
reasons why I said that that chronicwasting disease would not affect the reproduction and
populations of white tail deer, andit's turned out I'm absolutely right. There's
not a single periodview study that hasshown that CWD could affect reproduction and herd
growth in white tail deer. Why, in your opinion, is there so

(14:52):
much talk about deer eradication areas whenit's not proven effective. I can't get
my head around that. I can't. I can't get my head around it.
It's totally illogical. You see anexcellent publication of peer reviewed journal publications
and that let me back up thisa minute. I noticed that, you

(15:16):
know, you're a Kentucky management plan. It's not really all that bad.
It's at least they they've learned somethings from the other states. But it's
it's amazing to me that that theydon't realize that they say in there that
they follow the science. All thestates say they follow the science. My

(15:37):
gosh, hom a scientists. I'vebeen a scientist for fifty years. I
am adamant. I've religiously followed thescience, and that's what I'm doing.
What I'm saying these things is thatthat CWD is not a density dependent disease.
A density dependent disease would be likeCOVID, where the infection right is

(16:00):
proportional to how many people are packedin a small area. Well, and
chronic wasting disease it is a frequencydependent disease. Individuals have to be exposed
over and over again in order tocome down with it. Now, then
we'll talk about science. Let mequote some science to you. One of

(16:21):
this guy named Mike Miller, who'sa really good scientist. He was one
of the guys in the associated withBeth Williams out there in Colorado that when
they first found this. He hadan interesting study. He experimentally placed nine
CWD named mule deer in three pensof three to contain new deer carcasses that

(16:42):
died of CWD. Okay, nineteenpercent of the CWD named mule deer became
infected. That means eighty one percentdid not catch it, and they were
in there with a animal that hadsuccumbed to it. In another research project,
he experimentally exposed three groups of threedeer each to CWD. Navel deer

(17:07):
were placed in pins. One setof the three pins it had been occupied
by a CWD infected animal for twoyears, another one with a c W
carcass, and a third one inthree pins with CWD infected animal a living
animal which has been infected by CWD. Okay, a total of sixteen percent

(17:30):
of the CWD nave deer in thethree experimental conditions, and nine pence became
infected and eighty four percent did notbecome infected. Now you tell me if
that means that this is highly contagious. Yeah, just doesn't add up.
And I'm glad you cited those studies. I wasn't aware of those, and

(17:52):
that that really helps to to putsome perspectives on that Docor after we come
back from this break, I wantto talk to you about some of the
things that other states have done thatdidn't seem to produce results, and then

(18:17):
I'm going to talk to you aboutsome of the aspects that that trick will
bear. My co host, ScottCronin's got several questions for you as well,
so if you'll stand by, we'llget back to you after the break.
But again, I want to thankyou so much for coming on because
there's all kind of speculation and fearmonitoring, and folks got a lot of

(18:38):
opinions that just don't master facts.And the reason we've got you here is
to spell those those things that justsimply are not true. All Right,
folks, we got to go tobreak here. This break is preserved by
Mossel property's heart Realty. Paul Thomasis a broker. He's got all kind
of wildlife management properties, farms,vacation homes and lakefront properties for sale.

(19:03):
Check about at m O P hA R T realted dot com. Really
mean down yonder on to chat fouts, you idiots, honor than a hoo's
couchin we they We're back talking withdoctor dear doctor James Crawl about chronic wasting

(19:30):
disease and its appearance in the stateof Kentucky and uh doc uh unfortunately in
a lot of the states that havedealt with c w D and Kentucky I
think is gonna phone in line withwhat I'm gonna speak to here, and
I say unfortunately because it's disturbing tome. They're equating feeding of deer meneral

(19:59):
sites and baiting for deer with dangersfor the herd to contract CWD. And
my thoughts on that is to refutethat argument that deer, because of their
social structure, are always interacting withone another, licking each other, grooming

(20:22):
each other, defecating and urinating aroundlicking branches where they trade saliva. In
addition to all the above, andof course scrapes. When bucks scrape,
the deer in the area tend tocome to those and check them out,
and dear need supplement doer need additionalfoods? Can you speak to that particular

(20:48):
issue please in your thoughts? Yeah, sure A. Can you know,
let me back up a little bit. When AWD shows up in a state,
it is a it's sort of aboon to agencies because so my my

(21:11):
colleagues out there, the wildlife managementsthere, they were trained scientists like I
was. They have a philosophical biasagainst intentioned deer management. Uh. This
has gone on for as you youknow, of all people, there's tremendous
interest among the landowners and hunters inmanaging deers, and supplemental feeding is certainly

(21:37):
a part of of that thing.But what happens when CBT shows up is
something that may sound familiar to youconsidering our experiences in the past with COVID,
and that is there's a thing calledemergency rule. If the if the
governor declares emergency rule over an issuethat is deemed is something really bad is

(22:00):
going to happen, it actually suspendsthe constitution. And there are a lot
of things that that academic academic wildlifebiologists and some agency biologists have hated about
about their management is they don't likeThey don't like protecting eroine bucks. They

(22:22):
really don't like that because that affectsaffects their their hardest. They don't like
supplemental feeding. They certainly don't likedear breeders. Uh. And this is
a golden opportunity without much democratics sayto to put a halt in a band
or all things they disliked over theyears. Uh. A lot of the

(22:45):
states are are moving away from uhANT restrictions to protect eurin bucks, and
certainly with baden. Now there again, I'll go back to science. There
is there is no published science thatshows that a baiting band has ever done

(23:11):
anything to stop curtail, eliminate orwhatever of chronic wasting disease. It has
not happened. That it's not outthere. Now they'll they'll use laboratory science.
Well, I call Frankenstein's science tojustify banning things like like baiting and

(23:37):
feeding and mineral supplementation. Probably oneof the most respected product publications ever done
was done by Science, the journalScience, where they did all sorts of
horrible things to deer. They injecteda white tail phone with a two hundred

(23:59):
and fifty millions years of contaminated blood, and they did that to three of
them and they became insected with CWD. Well, where in nature is free
ranging deer ever going to get atwo hundred and fifty militers blood transfusion from
from a disease deer? Oh myuh out uh that feeding urine and feces

(24:25):
will carry CWD okay or carry theprions. Well, it was not.
The study done in science showed thatthis is horrible to do to deer.
Three funds were orally inoculated with atotal of fifty milli liters of urine and
feces over a three day period thatwas daily. Now let me translate orally

(24:45):
inoculated. That's called force fed.And guess what they didn't come down with
c w D Well, one ofthe funks, one of the guides,
all right, but it died frombeing force fed urine. The theses when

(25:07):
we get the saliva salavas, youhit it right on the head of saliva's
probably uh where it gets transmitted.There was a safe study used fifty milli
liters of contaminated saliva right and andforce fed it to them three farms and

(25:29):
they all came down with or testedCWD positive. Where in nature or free
ranging deer exposed to fifty millions ofsaliva in three days. So well,
the justification of this baiting, Now, let's let's talk let's talk practicality here.

(25:51):
These guys, if we take themat face value, what they want
to do is reduce the deer herd, right, reduce the population size.
All right, you take away baiting, and let's make it be honest here.
Modern hunters are not the Daniel boonsthat we once had. You take
away baiting and you're going to you'regoing to do the exact opposite your harvested.

(26:15):
I predict your harvest will go down. Oh, I don't think there's
no question. I can guarantee you. Upwards of eighty five to ninety percent
of the hunters in Kentucky utilize supplementalfeeding and or bait in their hunting practices.
And I would hope that the lobbyin the legislature will understand that banning

(26:42):
baiting and feeding and minerals is goingto actually increase the number of dear because
they're gonna be harder to hunt.It's it's counterintuitive at best, and it's
it's very disturbing. And not toyour point about Spenser of Constitution. I

(27:03):
have it on very good authority thatthere's already a bill that's been drafted by
someone in the legislature to ban feeding, baiting, et cetera. And that
is not going to boat well forthat individual. They'll be doing at their

(27:26):
political peril because it doesn't follow thescience. Like you said, they've been
sold to bill of goods and ifthey buy it, they're going to choke
on it. Oh. I agree. I've got in my Facebook page alone,

(27:47):
I have like I've got how manya million people look at something and
people are fed up with it.And I've been fascinating and encouraged by the
wisdom that the average landowner hunter isgot out there. They're not being fooled
by any of this stuff they've beenaround. I mean when you know,

(28:07):
when when it first hit in Wisconsin, which by the way, was brought
to you by by scientists in Wisconsin, they were the hunters were told that
if they didn't go out there andkilled those hundred seventy two thousand years that
the white fauld here would be extinctin less than twenty years in Wisconsin.

(28:30):
Well, they were, I meanhunters are loyal folks. I mean they
want to do what's right for thewildlife. They went out there and did
the horrible thing of killing those thosespotted fonts. And then they it didn't
take them long to figure out thathey, this didn't work and this is
not a good idea, and they, as the consequence of the legislature in

(28:51):
Wisconsin, put an end to it. Said it was not it was not
not working. When we wrote ourreport, it was interesting, we pointed
out that it was a failure andthe DNR came back and asked us would
we change the wording and our reportto unsuccessful. Well, unsuccessful is failure

(29:15):
and it didn't work. Yep.Well where I went to school, that's
what it meant. I tell youthat. All right, we've got to
go to quick break. My cohost Scott Krohner has got several questions he'd
like to run by you, Doc, So if you'll hold, we'll be
back to you here in just aminute. This break is presented by SMI

(29:37):
Marine. Go see him to takegreat care you remember you never get soked
by my friends at SMI. Ohmy back to doctor James Crow and Scott.
I know you wanted to talk todoctor Crow a little bit about supplement
of feeding and attitudes and what itcould do with CWD far away my friend,

(30:02):
Yeah, doct You know, there'sso many different ways that your brain
can start firing when it comes toCWD and how it can impact the state,
the economy, people's careers. Butfrom your position of where you're at,

(30:22):
we do have CWD in multiple states. Will we see a time in
your opinion, that we will beable to utilize any type of product or
additive to possibly utilize in a supplementalfeeding program to actually help prevent the onset

(30:44):
or even possibly get rid of CWDin the deer herd. I think there's
a high probability that will that willa lot of research going on right now
that I think had that could havemerit. Uh. There's two There's two

(31:07):
uh factors that that I think arevery positive on the horizon. One is
what you were thinking about is maybeuh supplemental feeding and using using that two
to deal with the disease. Butalso, UH, my colleague doctor Chris
Seaberry is UH has found that thereis genetic resistance in deer UH and identified

(31:33):
what what the genetics is and alot of the AH deer breeders, as
a matter of fact, have alreadycalled their deer by running DNA on them
and called out the ones that havehigh susceptibility. Pennsylvania UH is working with
them, as I'm told UH,they're looking at the possibility of maybe doing

(31:57):
with stocking and the much hated deerbreeders may be part of the salvation in
this. Okay, another question foryou DOT to kind of look at this
in an advocating way to accept CWDbeing on the landscape. You said that

(32:19):
the population has actually come back,and I think a lot of us are
just wanting to make sure that wedon't just have the population, but the
quality of the deer herd. Butmore importantly, when people look at deer
as far as being part of theirnutrition and consumption of innison, which there
are still a lot of people thathunt deer for meat, are we going

(32:43):
to need to develop or will weneed to see testing in CWD areas for
all deer harvested that are going tobe blended into summer sausages or going through
meat packing or processing plants. Wherewhere do you stand on that? And
and how do we as consumers ofvenice? And how do we know even

(33:07):
if there's going to be disagreements amongstagencies and states and and other hunters,
how do we know that what we'reputting in our bodies, in our children's
body is it's going to be asafe product to digest. Yeah, I'm
kind of ambivlent on that. Uh. Uh, there're certainly we've got we've

(33:28):
got testing developed now that we canuh. You know that hunters if they're
concerned about uh the venicon and thedeer that they harvested, Uh, they
can get very quick response. We'vegot we've got a really good test that's
been around for a long time,but rt quick that we can uh we

(33:49):
can give a hundred pretty uh quickuh opinion on whether or not the diary
shot has got uh is caring seeddoccas Miller As we go through this.
As we go through this, wouldyou advise us as hunters to test our
deer in CWD areas before it's likerequired or even offered at our processors.

(34:14):
Yeah, I would recommend that youhave them tested if you're worried about it.
Now here's the other side of theambivalence. There is no danger that
CWD, already said, has neveraffected the human being in the history we've
known about it. Okay, it'snot a disease that people are going to

(34:37):
come down with, but they're usingthe fear of that. The thing I
fear most is that if I wantedto kill hunting, eighty percent of which
is deer hunting, I would tryto convince the hunters in the general public
that venison is an unwholesome food item. And by by you know, just

(35:02):
having a testing program to certify thatyour dear's not caring CWD, you're pacively
implying that there's a problem if itdoes. You see what I'm saying this
is it really concerns me. Butas far as technology goes, it's easy.
It's easy to provide those services tohunters if they're concerned about it,

(35:27):
quite easily to do that. Well, I'm traveling, traveling behind the scenes.
When we come back, DOC,if you don't care, I'd like
for you to speak about how energyand efforts from departments have exhausted employees and
how it's even taken away from themanagement efforts of other species. Okay,

(35:49):
okay, folks, we got togo to break here. Uh. This
break is presented by mostree Old PropertiesHeart Realty. Paul Thomas is the broker
there. Paul's a hunter fisher andhe understands the kind of properties that you
folks are looking for. They've gotan extensive inventory those properties and you can
check them out at m O Ph A r T Realty dot com. H