Larry Dablemont Article

[jdmidwest]

Nature always finds a way.

Man made manipulation always seems to cause problems in most cases.

[tjm]

Interesting to note that most (all?) CWD out breaks are in or near captive cervids. Probably the biggest reason that it hasn't become more widespread. 1967 (first observed) is closer to 50 years  and it was  just in captive herds til ~1981.

The goat version (scrapie) can wipe out a 2-300 head herd in a couple weeks, I saw it happen to two different farmers.

I also observed pigs with all the symptoms of prion disease and there is a study out there on whether pigs (largely prion resistant) might be a reservoir of prion carriers.

[MOPanfisher]

The worst thing about CWD is the fact that the infection prion are essentially indestructible.  They aren't alive so they can't be killed, they simply exist.  At least one outbreak near me was apparently caused by a deer killed somewhere else and he carcass disposed on their property.  The prions exist in the nervous tissues i.e. brain and spinal column.

[fishinwrench]

My position has always been that if you can't kill or eliminate the disease, and it isn't necessarily fatal then why bother any further with it?   It's just another fact of life that we have no control over, so IMO there's no sense in wasting anymore time and money in the name of it.  

I'd rather see all that CWD money going to homeless drunks, or birth control for crackheads.

[tjm]

They'd like to contain it, sorta like the leper colonies. I guess leprosy was one of that kind of disease for 10,000 years, though I've read that they can cure it now. If the area around every deer pen can be contained to 3 or four counties, then the rest of us can eat deer untested, research is ongoing about many aspects of CWD and CWD is eventually fatal some times very quick;y and other times a carrier might live a long time just spreading it around. I'm sure that  if they can prove that there is no human threat and when they realize that deer are not universally loved, the feds will curtail the spending. But then the economics of spend and borrow will require they spend the same on some thing new.

[MoCarp]

2 hours ago, fishinwrench said:

My position has always been that if you can't kill or eliminate the disease, and it isn't necessarily fatal then why bother any further with it?   It's just another fact of life that we have no control over, so IMO there's no sense in wasting anymore time and money in the name of it.  

I'd rather see all that CWD money going to homeless drunks, or birth control for crackheads.

Wrench, many diseases have devastated populations, in the 14th century the black plague took out an estimated 200 million persons...dutch elm disease has about wiped out elm trees...chestnut blight has obliterated a once very common tree in north America....a fungus called "chytrid" has wiped out many frogs and salamanders populations...Bats: White-nose syndrome...Snake fungal disease...Colony collapse disorder in honey bees...   

we live in a time we have the resources to study and perhaps effect changes, its not glamorous, but its work that we as good stewards SHOULD do...

I guess my science background makes these issues important to me as poor water pump design is to you...CWD has the potential to change the hunting world, we are just getting started learning about CWD and I am sure we will learn a great deal more....IMHO money well spent

[SpoonDog]

On 7/24/2018 at 8:56 AM, Smalliebigs said:

I don’t know who Larry is but, if the MDC is shooting hogs on Jonny’s land for free??? Well that is lame.

I've had MDC come out and write management prescriptions for my forest, for free.  I've had them help write out timber contracts, for free.  I know folks who've had their ponds stocked with fish from MDC hatcheries for free.  Nothing nefarious, just part of MDC's effort to manage fish and game and forests in the state.  Johnny's a resident, a landowner, a purchaser of hunting and fishing licenses- which means he's entitled to the same privileges as everyone else, irrespective of his wealth.  Now if they were flying Johnny around in the helicopter, that's a problem.  If they had blown off other landowner's requests to go shoot Johnny's hogs, that's a problem. But Dablemont isn't presenting that sort of evidence.  If anything, he's using evidence of MDC personnel doing their job to argue MDC personnel aren't doing their job.  It doesn't make a lick of sense. 

I dunno Dablemont.  Maybe he's a great guy.  But he's a consistently bad "journalist." If he wants to write an opinion column or folksy short stories or even just op-ed letters to the editor railing against MDC, more power to him.  If he wants to be MDC's watchdog, awesome- do the research, gather the facts and their supporting evidence, and report them.    MDC's written numerous articles on hog management in the state, if Dablemont's still in the dark, the onus is on him to do more/better research.   If he thinks MDC's hog policy is bad that's fine, he's entitled to his own opinion.  If he's going to argue MDC's hog policy should emulate TX, NC, AR, TN, or other states where hog populations have increased even with public hunting- it speaks to his knowledge of the subject. 

There's value in being an MDC watchdog, but let's pick a better champion.  I'm not certain Dablemont understands making a career out of going off half-cocked impugns his credibility more than MDC's.  There's a risk in being the boy who cried wolf.  In the meantime, his work only serves to stoke mistrust in the conservation initiatives he, as a sportsman, should be advocating. 

I'm wiling to listen when he presents something tangible.  But until that happens, his work isn't worth my time.

 

[oneshot]

Ok common sense don't have to listen to LD or MDC they both have an agenda. I would say most have ate Deer that have CWD and there will always be Feral Hogs.

 

That is all I have to say because everyone has their own idea and no sense in arguing.

oneshot 

[SpoonDog]

It's a false equivalence.  Agencies like the CDC and MDC try making policy based on the best available information.  Dablemont wings it.  Those are two different things. 

Example: CDC has never documented CWD in people.  Ever.  Dablemont insists they have.  That isn't a difference of opinion; Dablemont is wrong.  He claims "Colorado research" shows 78 deaths from CWD- Colorado Department of Health has never reported any deaths from CWD.  Ever.  That isn't a difference of opinion, Dablemont's just wrong.  I don't know where he came up with the 78 deaths figure,  I found this study looking at Colorado deaths from prion diseases between 1978-1998.  Those authors state prion diseases are very rare, that transmission between species is very rare, and that in those twenty years 78 people died from unknown degenerative brain diseases.  I don't know if it's the study Dablemont used because he didn't provide any documentation- no studies, no reports, no links, nothing.  But if it is, he got it wrong. 

The more I think of it, CWD is a great case study in why a guy like Dablemont isn't worth your time.  He's extremely concerned CWD is and will be transmitted to humans, despite any evidence.  He's written he is not at all interested in taking down deer feeders, despite overwhelming evidence high densities of deer contribute to the spread of CWD.  Heck, he's surprised no deer in SWMO tested positive for CWD, despite it being in the Arkansas herd, so on some level he gets the whole communicable disease thing.  His positions aren't even internally consistent.  And the more I read of Dablemont's stuff, the more I wonder whether he even fully understands what he's mad about. 

As a lay person I fully agree, oneshot- Dablemont has the right to his own opinion, even if it's misinformed.  But as a journalist, and as a self-appointed watchdog for MDC, Dablemont has a responsibility to deal with his audience honestly.  Dablemont's audience has a responsibility to hold him accountable for his words.  We're Dablemont's audience, and we get to decide whether he represents us. 

 

 

For me that's an easy, unequivocal "no."

[tjm]

Problem with people like Dablemont is that other ignorant people won't understand that he knows nothing and lots of it. People who are allowed to vote because they did away with the literacy test will believe all that stuff with no questions asked.