Butchers and CWD

[buckman]

My prairie Mule Deer buck is in the freezer, did it myself as always.Have to get it tested for CWD now. I wonder what the deal is with game butchers,will they take a prairie deer or not. Just thinking about the cross contamination issue with Elk,Moose and other game they cut.

If its not an issue at the moment I wonder if it will be in the future. Your animal may test negative,but could be contaminated from a previous one cut on the same table.

[sk270]

Originally Posted by buckman

My prairie Mule Deer buck is in the freezer, did it myself as always.Have to get it tested for CWD now. I wonder what the deal is with game butchers,will they take a prairie deer or not. Just thinking about the cross contamination issue with Elk,Moose and other game they cut.

If its not an issue at the moment I wonder if it will be in the future. Your animal may test negative,but could be contaminated from a previous one cut on the same table.

I don't know how much concern is warranted. However, like I said in the other thread, I talked to the local butcher and he knew nothing about prions or CWD. They do process deer, with no restrictions. They do not do any clean-up between carcasses that would affect prions. That means that prions from the last deer could contaminate the meat from my deer done next. If I were going to be extremely cautious, I shouldn't buy any meat from the shop. But I do.

[hilt134]

I’m a bit more worried about butchers that just pool the meat together. You bring in a 70lbs meat deer you get 70lbs of meat back. No way they can screen the things.even with butchers that return your deer to you. From what I’ve heard they all get so swamped that you aren’t getting a deep enough clean between animals to get rid of cwd so honestly it’s a bit of a gamble.

[Jamie Black R/T]

If you have used a butcher in Alberta, you have likely eaten cwd prions in your returned wild game

Same goes for beef, pork and anything else that may go across their tables.

There's a lot of guys that don't even test heads and put their meat through shops.

Couple that with the fact most shops don't even ask about cwd results.

If cross contamination was an issue....we would know by now i would think.