FAILING THE TEST

NE OF THE BIGGEST problems with chronic wasting disease is that it doesn’t kill deer fast enough. If hunters were finding dead bucks by the dozen around their food plots, we might heed the dire warnings of state agencies and conservation groups. Our laissez-faire attitude toward captive-deer breeders might change. But whitetails can live for a year or more with CWD and not exhibit any symptoms—and many wild deer with CWD end up dying from something else due to a wrecked immune system. After years of being told that the disease is “always fatal” and yet still finding no dead bucks, many