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Nebraska Game and Parks Commission

LINCOLN, Neb. --(Ammoland.com)- Chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer has appeared for the first time in Buffalo, Custer and Holt counties, according to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.

There were 1,565 lymph node samples collected from deer taken during the 2011 November firearm deer season, with 26 samples testing positive for CWD.

In addition, samples were taken from 37 culled deer that showed clinical symptoms for CWD, with one male mule deer from Garden County testing positive.

Those symptoms include a rough, emaciated appearance and a lack of fear of humans.

There were a record 51 positives from 3,645 samples in Nebraska in 2010. However, the surveillance effort was reduced in 2011 due to a lack of funds. The 2011 effort focused on central Nebraska, the leading edge of the disease as it spreads from west to east.

Game and Parks confirmed CWD in the state’s deer population in 2000. CWD is a disease that can affect deer and elk and always is fatal to the affected animal. Humans have never been known to contract CWD.

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Wild Bison Of The Yellowstone Should Not Be Slaughtered Because A Few Ranchers

Letters to the AmmoLand Editor: Got something on your mind? Let us know and you can see it here.

Montana --(Ammoland.com)- I firmly believe that the wild bison of the Yellowstone Ecosystem should not be slaughtered simply because a few ranchers outside of the historic entrance to Yellowstone National Park think that wild bison spread disease, which has not been proven scientifically.

What has been proven is that domestic animals spread disease to various types of wildlife.

Furthermore, I firmly believe that all wild bison should be hunted without roaming restrictions and I support efforts by Montana Dept. of Fish, Wildlife and Parks to relocate wild bison to various public land masses. I also support the relocation of excess wild bison to other state, tribal and federal land systems.

Wild bison are not cattle or other domestic animals and should never be managed by the Montana Dept. of Livestock. They are not livestock.

As a Montana hunter, I firmly believe that excess wild bison should be hunted under the rules of Fair Chase and that wild bison should be allowed to roam outside Yellowstone National Park without being slaughtered by paid shooters.

For years I have supported the permit hunting of wild excess bison within the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park during a special hunting season. Money collected from these hunting licenses would then go back to the management of wild bison. I also support the legal hunting of wildlife within the boundaries of other national parks where populations of some wildlife are in excess of the land’s carry load, such as the elk population of Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.

I do not support the introduction of wolves to national parks to control excess wildlife populations of cervids and believe that the natural reproduction of wolves in the wild is the appropriate way to allow wolves to thrive. I also believe that excess populations of wolves must be reduced through legal hunting, not sharpshooting.

In the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt, Aldo Leopold, Ding Darling, Horace Albright and those Americans that began our public land systems in the early 1900s at the state and federal level, I say, the wildlife and its habitat cannot speak, so I must and I do and so must we all for those wildlife.

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