Welp, I didn't have zombie apocalypse on my 2025 bingo card. But I guess it's a bit like being attacked by a kola bear, unlikely but never zero. Okay, I don't know the zombie apocalypse is happening this year, so I'll play down the theatrics. But scientists have made an alarming discovery that may affect your future hunts.
It turns out that zombie deer disease, also called chronic wasting disease, may make the jump to humans in the near future. That would make hunting season decidedly more complicated. In deer, the disease has a near 100 percent fatality rate, and there's no signs it wouldn't be the same in humans. The disease causes confusion, drooling, changes in motor and cognitive function and eventually death.
So what has scientists alarmed? Well, zombie deer disease has now become zombie pig disease. They've found the wasting disease in wild pigs that have eaten infected deer. That's only a skip and a hop from infecting our pig industry and spreading to humans.
Zombie Deer Disease
Dr. Michael Osterholm, a top infectious diseases researcher at the University of Minnesota, said via Daily Mail, "We have some limited data now suggesting that feral pigs might be infected. If they can get infected, surely it's possible domestic swine could also become infected? What would that do to the swine market? What would that do to the cattle market? These are huge issues."
Pigs and humans share a lot of DNA, so the fact that it's able to infect pigs is not a promising sign. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources warn that the disease could spread to humans. It doesn't matter how much you cook the meat either. Cooking actually concentrates the infected proteins.
If it spreads to humans, then we're facing an incurable disease. It can spread via saliva, blood, or feces. How very Walking Dead of it.
Osterholm said, "We know that people are being exposed [to CWD] through consumption [of meat] with prions. 'What we don't understand yet is what would it take for that prion to actually infect that human with ingestion."
So it's best to practice caution when dealing with infected deer.
