Deer Zombie Disease in Canada: We previously alerted our readers about a new disease that is currently affecting Canadian deer, and this news is making the rounds again.
According to a recent article, wildlife doctors and biologists in Northern America are concerned about Canada’s deer numbers dwindling. Canada’s Zombie Epidemic, Chronic Wasting Disease is a peculiar and highly transmissible disease that has been infecting the captive and wild populations of ungulates (CWD).
Symptoms of rapid weight loss (wasting away), extreme thirst and urine, stumbling, drooling, lack of coordination, lack of fear of people, listlessness, and other potentiation predators have been observed in deer in the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta.
Deer Zombie Disease in Canada
It’s possible that this is why it’s also known as “Zombie Disease.” CWD affects deer, reindeer, elk, moose, and sika deer in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It has been discovered in Canada, the United States, South Korea, and Norway, among other places in North America. CWD is caused by “prions,” which are aberrant, pathogenic agents. These are proteins that cause abnormal folding of normal proteins in the brain, and the condition is part of a group of infections known as Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs).
Explaining Zombie Disease in Canada
When it’s found in cattle, it’s termed bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or “mad cow disease,” in sheep and goats, it’s called Scrapie, and in humans, it’s called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). TSEs are a set of diseases that affect the nervous and neural systems and can be fatal. CWD was first identified as a deadly wasting condition in caught mule deer at research institutions in Colorado and Wyoming in the late 1960s. In the year 1981, it was discovered in wild populations in Colorado. CWD has been found in at least 26 states in the United States since the first epidemic, and it is currently considered an endemic disease in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wisconsin, South Dakota, and Montana.
Do Indian Biologists Require To Be Worried?
Not unless the disease can travel 11,000 kilometers over three continents. In any case, foresters will have no way of knowing unless they observe herds of deer withering away and dying in droves. The wildfire biologists here are more concerned about investigating the diseases closer to home than they are about a disease infecting deers thousands of kilometers away.
