Zombie Deer Disease and Bigfoot

[starchunk]

1 hour ago, bipedalist said:

Stay away from eating snails and slugs likely source of transmission to white-tailed deer, it is interesting to think of the connoiseur BF and need for l'escargot in this case of culinary crud.  A brain worm parasite sounds like an ugly way to go in those cases.  The persistence of the organism and its ubiquitous nature is very troubling and would hope BF loses the bib on snails and slugs.  Hoping Les Stroud, Bear Grylis et al don't encourage the consumption of such.  

 

Never been big on Escargot, no issues there.

[Catmandoo]

Oh no, this cuts into my banana slug cuisine.  We have big juicy yummy  banana slugs in western Washington.

 

Researchers have been looking into the human risk factor with CWD.  One example:

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Chronic+wasting+disease+of+elk%3A+transmissibility+to+humans+examined+by+transgenic+mouse+models.

 

They have initial work to theorise a 'species barrier' that prevents 'humans' from contracting CWD from ungulates.   Is this 'species barrier' a new twist to lump Sasquatch into the 'human'  category if they are resistant / immune to ungulate CWD?

The CDC has not forgotten the hunters. More work is needed.

Edited October 10, 2019 by Catmandoo
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[CallyCat]

On 10/8/2019 at 7:09 PM, hiflier said:

After looking at the map in this article I began to wonder if Bigfoot preying on deer or other ungulates in winter in those areas would be at risk for the disease. If they exist in say Colorado then my sense tells me that they would indeed be at risk. Humans too since cooking the meat of an affected deer doesn't reduce the risk in the slightest since if I remember correctly it takes extremely high temperatures, far above boiling even, to kill prions?:

 

https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cwd/occurrence.html

That's assuming that these prions could jump species, or that the gastric juices wouldn't destroy them, the ability to be absorbed through the GI tract would also affect bigfoot's susceptibility. I believe if bigfoot is out there, he has a pretty descent immune system in order for him to survive in general, otherwise, eating people's trash would have wiped them out a long time ago. 

Edited October 11, 2019 by CallyCat

[Scratchy]

There was a study on 21 macaques that were fed infected muscle meat, infected brain meat, or were injected with the CWD protein. Some of the macaques became infected and were euthanized. On this hand, it is supposedly possible that humans could get CWD, since some of the macaques did.

 

 One the other hand, I believe there is a separate study concluding that some of the macaque’s proteins were the same as cervids, allowing infection, whereas human proteins were too different from cervids to allow infection. This actually holds water as a prion is known in goats and sheep, called Scabies, that have never infected humans. Scabies have also existed for a long, long time. Since Sasquatch is very likely to be incredibly close genetically to humans, it’s plausible that they simply can’t, or very very rarely get CWD.

 

Regarding how Sasquatch  and other animals avoid or deal with prions; prions are slow acting and unpredictable. They can become symptomatic in just a few years, or not at all. 

 

Its plausible that Sasquatch and even other predators would shift their diet to other animals if the disease would become too much of an issue over time, or not selecting parts of the animal that are likely to carry the prion (brain, spinal cavity). In fact, do most predators routinely avoid brains and the like? Much like how many predators avoid some other organs like parts of the digestive tract, perhaps predators avoid brains due to prion diseases? I haven’t been able to find any evidence for or against this.

 

I will say that prions really aren’t a massive problem for the non-host species. Heck, many animals that are members of the host species may never develop the effects of a prion disease in the first place. I doubt this disease is majorly affecting, or even having any effect at all, on sasquatches.

 

I will try to find the two studies if I can.

 

[Huntster]

5 hours ago, Scratchy said:

........In fact, do most predators routinely avoid brains and the like? Much like how many predators avoid some other organs like parts of the digestive tract, perhaps predators avoid brains due to prion diseases? I haven’t been able to find any evidence for or against this.....

 

Not scientific evidence, but my experience with bears and wolves isvthat the brains of ungulates are ignored, but livers are prized. I'm not sure about lungs, heart, or kidneys. I always take the livers and hearts of the game I shoot, and I regularly use the rest of the guys for predator bait. Bears, especially grizzlies, love such bait. I think they enjoy the lungs, but I can't confirm it.

 

Birds and insects clean out the skull. I bring my ungulates skulls home with antlers attached and throw them up on a shed to let nature clean them out before nailing them to a shed or tree.