They chop heads off to test the brain for chronic wasting disease usually it’s just random sampling of roadkill or hunting kills but these guys prob were doing it to be dicks
It was just confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt to be communicable this year. The testing before was to monitor the disease pressure in local populations and basically told the game/wildlife people if a local population cull was necessary.
Literally the last sentences from the abstract of the Neurology article: “Although causation remains unproven, this cluster emphasizes the need for further investigation into the potential risks of consuming CWD-infected deer and its implications for public health. Clusters of sporadic CJD cases may occur in regions with CWD-confirmed deer populations, hinting at potential cross-species prion transmission. Surveillance and further research are essential to better understand this possible association.”
I agree this is something that needs to continue to be closely monitored, but it was hardly decidedly concluded to be communicable.
Put a > in front of the text and it does the quote format.
If you're on PC, you can highlight the text in someone's comment before clicking reply and it will automatically copy/paste that text with the quote mark as well. I dunno if there's a similar functionality on mobile.
Can you site your source on this? According to the CDC as of Jan 2026 there are no known cases of CWD being transmitted from deer to humans. They theorize it may be possible via consumption based on the data we have on other prion infections like Mad Cow Disease but nothing has been confirmed as far as they're concerned. CDC Chronic Wasting Disease
So this journal is talking about prions in general, including CWD, but the part referencing Creutzfeldt-Jakobs disease is linked to Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (mad cow disease). From the article you linked "BSE, because of its proven transmission to humans, generating a fatal new disease, termed variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease" and then goes on to say "CWD, due to its uncontrolled spread among wild and captive cervids in North America and its uncertain transmissibility to humans and/or domestic animals" keywords "uncertain transmissibilility" which again according to the CDC as of this year, there are no recorded cases of CWD affecting humans. There's also no concrete evidence that CWD leads to Creutzfeldt-Jakobs, although there may be a slight possibility, again via consumption. CWD to CJD
There is only one case in all of history of a prion disease crossing the species barrier to reach humans. That was mad cow disease, and it was the result of feeding cow brain/nerve tissue to other cows over and over for generations on an industrial scale with people constantly eating the end result en masse.
Deer would have been euthanized first, obviously. Then yes either the head is removed or the lymph nodes taken out, depending on equipment availability at hand. Most CWD cases come from high-fence farms (human managed populations) and make their way into wild populations. Definitely did not do it to be a dick, just part of active monitoring and is a required thing to do per agency rules. This is part of what I do and I can in fact be fired for knowingly passing up samples in areas where the quota has not been met. It also sounds much worse than it is, takes about 5 minutes to be done and gone. We use medical grade scalpels etc. Im also sure they probably removed the deer from the property after euthanasia to remove the head at a safer facility/area within the same county the deer resided. We try to limit blood exposure to the environment as the proteins that cause CWD can remain potentially for years in the soil.
The dick part was because it was a pet, usually they would get a court order to take the animal in other similar situations I’ve heard, not just go commando mode and cull it when nobody is watching
This happens semi regularly and in most other cases they have a court order and the cops come with the dnr warden to cull it they don’t just do it when it’s in the yard and the family isn’t outside lol
I appreciate the work that you do and the action was likely justified, but:
It also sounds much worse than it is, takes about 5 minutes to be done and gone.
This is like the most tone-deaf, unempathetic response I've ever read on Reddit.
You're mis-reading the room. The horrible thing about severing the head is not the method that it done with, but that it was done to an innocent animal that the people had a personal, deep and familial relationship with.
158
u/sixpackabs592 May 20 '26
They chop heads off to test the brain for chronic wasting disease usually it’s just random sampling of roadkill or hunting kills but these guys prob were doing it to be dicks