from Hacker News

'Don't call it zombie deer disease': infections spread across the US and globe

by mindracer on 3/20/25, 9:33 PM with 2 comments

• by realityfactchex on 3/20/25, 10:58 PM

  In TFA, the quoted epidemiologist says not to call it zombie disease because that trivializes the issue. Perhaps zombie serves uses as cute/fictional and scary sounding.

  While we're being precise, we might do well to not to assume that apparently poisoned animals actually fell ill to a contagious disease.

  IMO, the Guardian piece trivializes a real potential environmental hazard issue, and chalks it up to an unproven contagious disease. There's been a lot of research along these lines, which I don't see mentioned at all. Maybe the epidemiologist and the Guardian are falling into the ol' zombie trap, themselves!

• by LinuxBender on 3/20/25, 9:38 PM

  CWD was detected not far from me according to the senior game warden. I have not yet seen any symptoms in any of my 100+ deer yet. It will be sad to see them go and worse if it spreads to the eagles that eat their carcasses. Some deer breeders in the eastern US have found some sub-species of deer S225F vs. 225SS vs. 225SF vs. 225FF are more resilient than others genetic variations in the PRNP gene. There are a handful of research papers on this topic. I have two different sub-species of mule deer. As I am not permitted to dart them I will just have to wait and see which ones are which.