DNR Requests Deer Samples from Hunters

DNR, as in the Department of Natural Resources, requires all hunters from the state Illinois to submit deer samples for analysis. The DNR requests deer sample from hunters in order to see if they are infected with the chronic waste disease.

Hunters that were recently thinking of cooking their meals out of the prized game should consider taking to lab testing before consuming the meat. The Department of Natural Resources announced that hunters can bring either morsels or the animal’s head for sampling. These lab tests will be conducted from December until the 17^th of January.

This initiative was brought forth by the ever increasing number of deer coming down with the hallowing disease. According to some statistics posted by the Department of Natural Resources, in 2002, over 500 samples of deer meat have been found to be contaminated with the prion that is capable of causing the dreaded chronic waste disease.

According to the literature on the matter, CWD is spongiform encephalopathy that affects deer, elk, and moose population. The first reported case of this disease was in 1967. The chronic waste disease can be characterized by a sudden drop in body weight, eventually leading to the death of the animal.

As stated, the culprit responsible for the transmission of the disease is a prion, which is considered to be an unusual protein. The prion lodged itself in the central nervous system where it builds up its numbers. A higher concentration of prionic proteins could lead to a cerebral event known as neurodegeneration.

In other articles, we have explained that up until know, there is no method of diagnosing a living animal. The prion infection has been discovered while the specialists were performing the necropsies.

Regarding the prion’s method of transmission, the scientists are unsure of how the prion is actually transmitted to the animal. Some of them speculate that the deer or the elk become infected due to eating grass from contaminated soil.

Food testing is essential because, as the health authorities have suggested the likelihood of the prion jumping from animal to human is pretty high. Moreover, if the animal is suspected of being infected, it would be wise not to consume morsels from the head area, because that is the prion’s nesting ground. Furthermore, hunters who have recently killer a deer should be very careful after cutting it into pieces. The best piece of advice is to wash their instruments carefully after removing the meat from the animal.

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