Chronic wasting disease (CWD) was diagnosed in March 2016 in a wild reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) from the Nordfjella mountain area in Norway. This was the first documented case of CWD in Europe.
It very well could be, if it changes to effect other species. But even if it just wipes out all cervids, that would still collapse a massive swath of the ecosystems around the world, which is a big, big problem.
the type of hunters who value hunting over keeping the prey population alive. feeding stations are the number one cause of CWD spread, do us a favor, slap a non caring hunter some sense today. they give hunters a bad name
one of the scariest moments of my life was seeing a deer walk out of the woods across from where i was swimming and drown itself in the water. the poor animal was stumbling and barely lucid. it was very sad, but we were more scared than anything, so we left quickly. cwd is a terrifying disease
@@sussymemes4108 can only hope it mightve been confused by something else, like an old wound etc. or maybe the protein wouldn't survive long in a water-based environment
if deer (idk if other animals do this too) are dying or are in such agonizing pain they’ll try to go to the nearest creek/river/pond/etc. and go in the water. not just CWD but if they are shot by a hunter and are severely wounded or bleeding out.
This makes me feel like I’m living in a post apocalyptic world and I’m watching a video made many years ago about the disease before it spread to humans.
@@thefogitself yes, it can. Prions can and have been found in humans, but it's mostly from cannibalism. CWD is the same as mad cow disease as well. It's just an unraveled protein that goes around your body unravelling other proteins, they're nigh invincible, and it has a 100% death rate. Don't be a retard and do some research before acting like you know shit ya clown
@@thefogitself Humans can get prion diseases that cause rapid neurodegeneration whether sporadic or from getting injected. It has occurred in eating prion-tainted beef, eating human brains and one form (FFI) is spread through family members. Though it is very very rare that this happens. A breakout of prion disease in humans occurred in the 1980s-1990s in Britain when mad cow disease (BSE) spread to humans which is known as vCJD (variant, cruetzfeldt Jakob disease)
@Pol in kenexel OK. As of April 2022, Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) has been detected in free-ranging cervids in 29 U.S. states. It also affects squirrel monkeys and other animals as this video shows. However we've known about CWD since the 1970s. Genetic discoveries are being made constantly and scientists are working around the clock regarding OPs comment and experimental vaccines have been made. They currently only increase the intubation period but its a start in the right direction. TLDR:No, but we're close. We're the same humans who eradicated polio. After Covid, people are taking zoonotic diseases seriously. As someone with OCD who scrolled to find a glimmer of hope: it will be OK, and likely solved soon. Many States have guidance advising them to test game prior to processing. Maybe this needs to be formal legislation. As a woman in the UK, all I can do is cross my fingers the brilliant minds in lab coats crack this one 🤞🏽
It feels like it’s the end of the world, and you’re watching this on a computer, mentioning a strange new disease in deers, with all of the knowledge on how it ended humanity
As someone that lives in a heavily wooded area, I've been warned most of my life of CWD. Always scared the life out of me. I hope I never have to see an animal suffering with it.
It’s horrific… shooting them doesn’t do much either unless you get a clean and direct shot to the head. The poor things are trapped in a body thats literally rotting away. Thankfully here in Australia I don’t think there’s ever been a case. But I know people over in the states who have unfortunately come across it.
@@spiro2061 how is it funny? imagine only existing in your brain while you are paralyzed and your body is rotting away but you cant do anything about it. you are a horrible person
This was already sad as hell but the music.. oh dear god. The ambient, sorrowful tune is the most brilliant and sadistic way to make you feel the pain of a bunch of pixels. And knowing recent times, billions of real deer too, which is easier to explain when someone asks why you’re teary-eyed.
to me it was more creepy than sad, that quiet noise of the proteins folding... the way the deer doesn't show any signs for a huge part of the infection... it's already scary to think about and the music just added to the uneasiness
I do agree. But I don’t understand the context. Is this from the tested nukes by us and the Russians. Or is it one of the three nuclear power plant explosions. Because the nukes contain the 80% more radiation than nuclear power plants
for the people in the comments saying it’s all over if humans get it: we have. we have a similar version of the disease, called kuru, the biggest difference is that it’s not transmittable and is extremely hard to get. eating a human brain is the only way to get kuru. it’s basically the same symptoms except the incubation period can last decades and after symptoms start you die in 6-12 months- the only way it would become a problem is if it mutated to be contagious and have other forms of getting it. i did an essay on this so-
i think you are forgetting something, the mad cow disease is too prionary sickness, eating the meat of one animal who have prions give you a 100% death, and in australia i think? there is another variant who makes you brain a sponge and give you insomnia until you die, who is transmisible by a mosquito
Kuru was only a thing in tribes and is pretty much eradicated IIRC. There is also Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which can happen when, in surgery, the doctors reuse tools in your brain. It can also happen out of nowhere, which is the case most of the time. Or genetically. Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is simple, caused by eating infected beef with Mad Cow Disease. Fatal Familial Insomnia is mostly genetic, but also sporadic. It destroys the part of your brain that allows you to sleep. You will mostly die of exhaustion when getting this one. GSS is just a more rare and genetic CJD, with a bunch of differences, there's Variable Protease Sensitive Prionopathy, I don't know much about it. One thing in common on all of these is that they are ALL 100% fatal, even in humans. Theres no way to prevent it, you can get it sporadically without any prior health risks, etc. Horrifying.
For some information: There are prion diseases in humans, but they’re mostly genetic or very rare. As long as you aren’t a cannibal, you should be fine Edit; Sorry for not enough information. Please do your own research, I’m not a doctor or scientist!!
@@SwordTune The infection is throughout the body in lymph nodes, my guess is that rupturing one would taint the surrounding tissue, if not the whole animal. That is just if the animal is not tainted anyway by the nature of the infection accumulating in the body.
@@keiferminehart4582 Prions progress the fastest in neural tissue. That's no guess, that's from previous studies on kuru, the human version of this disease.
@@roborosvki7938 it says long incubation time, and they would eat meat very rich in those proteins so not unlikely it would spread 2 them also, the best way would be to minimize meeting spots for cross species
@macaddict1337 popo I doubt wolves would be affected by the proteins since their from a entirely different animal family but true, although wolves would have helped quite a bit
It does affect humans. It affects literally all mammals on Earth. Look up "prions". They are all caused by an identical protein called PRPsc. The symptoms are just different from animal to animal, and based on how infection occurs.
Some human prion cases have also popped up in the past, mainly in places with ritual cannibalism or by food contamination. The whole Mad Cow Disease scare was a prion.
@@DogDogGodFog yes, indeed but again prions don't exacly evolve to do that since their main objective isnt to survive and spread more. So maybe one protein went rogue on deers and that protein somehow found a way to spread to other deers
@@DogDogGodFog then it could have gone to mutate a bit more and then blah blah blah. Now we humans burn or put in graves the corpses so that other diseases don't spread but deers don't really care about getting rid of the bodies of the other deers since they can't and don't need to. Since prions are really resistant they can wait for the deer to deteriorate then grass will grow containing prions that other deers will eat restarting the circle. So unless you eat another human or their remaints you should be fine.
This has actually been around for a long time, but It didn’t go public at the time. Now that we have the internet, people are seeing this a lot more often, that’s why people found out about it now.
@@UltraGamma25 Yeah but rabies doesn’t survive out of the host, and you actually have to be bit by a rabid animal. Prions can’t be killed when you cook food and live for years.
Reminds me of what my biology teacher always says about proteins, "You change the shape, you change the function!" Any protein, doesn't matter what, change the shape even the slightest bit and now it's unusable for its original intent Edit on February 27th,2023: Seems this video appeared in the algorithm again. This was senior year biology, we only covered so much about proteins, this is more a rule of thumb that changing the protein shape makes it unusable
The Problem is not that the protein becomes unusable, but that it cant be degraded anymore, which leads to it accumulating and having a toxic effect on neurons
prions are a lot different than most other proteins though i think. at least if you change other proteins your body can still probably use them. one slip up in prions and youre done
@@faust1464, Perhaps it's because of the name. "Chronic Wasting Disease" sounds kind of made up, to be honest. Since the said disease doesn't spread to humans (well, currently) and not every country has reindeers and the like (deer, moose, etc.) in it, the disease is a little less known. I, unfortunately, also thought this wasn't going to be a serious video. The art is really neat though.
We've had cases of CWD, in white-tailed deer, here in south central Michigan, in recent years. I haven't heard anything about it now for a few years. I hope that it is under control.
see LeMo's comment below: a balance of predators along with a healthy deer population. Many Michigan hunters come up to my old homestead lands in the Rainy River District but I haven't seen predators for 100 years. A few bears. Wolves and cougar were poisoned, trapped, shot and eliminated back when no one understood their critical role in a healthy population.
@@captainfiri7619 It's below zero, but absolute zero is in Kelvin! Absolute zero in C would be -273, and -456.67 for Fahrenheit. Still, -73.33 is enough to kill just about anything not 100% suited for it in every way, so that's... yeah that's scary.
I learned about this after doing some research on prions when I played Plague Inc. a lot. It’s genuinely depressing to hear about this disease and somewhat terrifying to imagine what those poor animals are going through :[
**plays plague inc** **names disease cwd 2** **starts in norway** **beelines for extreme zoonosis, necrosis, coma and total organ failure** **wins the game a minute later**
Chronic wasting disease is absolutely too soft of a euphemism, we need something that sounds more threatening like bruce's brain melting disorder of certain death.
Jesus Christ, CWD is truly horrible. The stories I’ve read are terrifying, like a guy who lived near an airport and went for a beer run. Since he lived near the airport, there were large fields, and when he was driving on the way to the store or whatever, he stopped to look at a deer. He thought there was something stuck on it’s head. Turns out it was smashing it’s head into a fence post and had an unhinged jaw. The dude was traumatized, and I can’t blame him. I’d probably piss myself and floor it if I saw a deer doing that and looking at me. I hope someone does something to help these poor animals.
the sound of the prions was so disturbing to me. Something about that sound makes me aware of the undeniable death that occurs through the prions. So horrible yet so real
i thought it said “chronic waiting disease” and my youtube was apparently glitched so i watched nearly 3 minutes of a black screen thinking it was a funny youtube joke vid till i went to the comments. something ain’t right here
Was someone else waiting for. The moment where they go: So here is whats being done, and then got a little depressed when there was no message of hope.
I think they leave it to us to determine we probably shouldn't put out salt licks. Except without telling us to, making it valuable information that attacks no one directly.
In some cases it can also turn the infected animals aggressive when it reaches the brain. Read the creepy stories from a Siberian game warden about some of the mega weird behaviours of the stags in his neck of the woods, including one that gored a police officer that badly they had to cut the stag's head off to be able to bury the poor guy 'cause the antlers were all caught up in his rib cage. Would have brushed it off as exaggerated if someone from America hadn't commented about the fact that he once had to shoot a stag that was trying to batter its way through the fence to get at his dogs. Apparently with the American one it was confirmed to be a case of CWD so yeah, not sure I want to eat venison any more.
I remember hearing this story of a guy that went hunting with his dad when they spotted a deer. The deer then slammed its head into a rock until it was completely shattered, and after that, the deer walked upright until it collapsed into a nearby river. That's how I first learned about this disease
@@nathanieljacobson2857 Maybe but, as I said, as there are comments about extremely similar stuff from both America and Russia not only in that videos comment section but also in this videos comment section... Well unless all of those people who are leaving comments about mad deer are liars, then yeah this disease does turn them aggressive.
@@v.j.bartlett It'd be a surprising, considering the fact that TSEs don't work in the same way rabies does. Chronic Wasting Disease, as the name suggests (along with other TSEs,) causes the infected creature to *waste* away, so especially in the late stages of the disease they would be way too weak to attack, or even cause serious damage if they did. If I recall correctly though, moose are known to be territorial/aggressive, and even moreso during rut, so there's that.
Matthew Lee its been one case. They slaughtered the whole herd of wild reindeers to contain it. They killed over 2000 reindeers in a few days, and the area is closed for all deer animals for five years, not been any other outbreak. 😊
why didn't they cull these deer off? its supposedly started off with a group of small deer almost decades ago and instead of killing those deer off people just sat around until a small deer/Ebola epidemic started... that could potentially jump to people? wtf????
Especially because porions aren't as weak to things like high temperatures as, for example many (obviously not all) bacteria. The durability of prions just adds to their scaryness.
Luckily, they're extraordinarily rare. CJD is the most common in humans and there are less than 600 cases in the US annually (estimate). Most cases are sporadic and typically occur in individuals in their 60s and 70s, although can occur at any age. Typical RoI is 1-2 in 1 million. By age, it's different. In individuals under 50, it's 5 cases in 1 billion (Maybe 40 worldwide annually, which is liberal). In individuals over 50, it jumps to 5 cases in a million.
These poor guys going through so much suffering to their very last breath. Hope we can find a cure for it one day. Edit: Sheesh, I sure made a controversy in my comment thread for simply not wanting an animal to suffer from a deadly disease.
I feel like an asterisk is needed at the end. Pretty sure prions in other humans do very much so affect us, through cannibalism. Which is a part of why it's shunned in most places.
there is inter-species barrier that protect us but according to at least one research, CWD in vitro (in lab environment) can adapt to affect humans. Source: Generation of a New Form of Human PrPSc in Vitro by Interspecies Transmission from Cervid Prions
@Ethan Roberts The human version of BSE is known as variant Cruezfeldt-Jakobs disease or vCJD for short. It began to spread in areas that ate beef imported from the United Kingdom during the BSE outbreak in the 80s. Regular CJD is different, though. It can be inherited or happens because of a currently unknown cause.
Note that this occurs in all deer species, not just reindeer. Furthermore, it only occurs on a wide basis when the deer population is too dense due to a lack of predators or a lack of human hunting.
I saw a deer with this desease and kept far away from it and watched it, and then called the game warden and they came out and shot it. It was just so sad to see it limping around and it was really better off dead, I don't know for 100% if it was CWD but I keep away from any animal that looks like it might be like that.
I mean, even if it wasn't CWD, animals walking "funny", shaking, convulsing, in circles, and in bad shape could be rabid - wich is as scary as prionic diseases - , so yeah, keeping your distance and informing anyone better equiped to deal with that is the smart thing to do.
We need to make testing for CWD mandatory for hunters who want to process the deer they shoot. Im not sure if this could ever spread to people, but i do not want to find out. And for everyone out there, if you see any animal that is acting strangely, *call your local game warden* they’re trained to look for signs of infectious diseases in wildlife and have the proper means to *safely* dispose of them. Edit; abnormal deer behaviors will include; - head hanging, appearing lethargic - not running, standing in place and letting you approach them - excessive amounts of saliva or nasal discharge - circling - running into objects - laying out in the open in busy places *Do not approach downed deer, even if they let you get close. Bucks during the rut can be very dangerous and aggressive, even if they are diseased and weakened.*
Hopefully it doesn't spread to humans. The normal prion protein that natually occurs in all mammals is highly conserved (surprisingly it also might not be very important in the body) so it's possible that it could leap between species by interacting with other mammal's prion proteins but that hasn't been documented. As far as I know in the United States at least no pipeline for testing samples directly sent in from hunters exists but it would be nice if it did. Usually prions are tested for using western blotting which requires tissue from the brain but newer tests exist which could work with blood or even lymph tissue samples. I'm positive it will be easier to get something like that funded after the coronavirus PCR test bottleneck showed the flaws in America's early epidemic response. Edit: after looking around it turns out several western states do have programs that test tissue samples sent in from hunters. It isn't mandatory but it's good to know that in at risk areas there's at least action being taken to monitor it.
@@smilofangs There's no reason to believe that any of the CWD prions circulating in the environment right now are capable of jumping out of cervids. If it was happening however we likely wouldn't know for years afterwards. The monitoring around these diseases is spotty and reactive not proactive so our knowledge of them is full of gaps. The prion protein in its non-disease causing form is very similar across almost all mammals which is why mad cow disease was such a big deal since that disease causing prion was similar enough to our own to cause disease in humans. So basically its not unprecedented that prions can become a problem for one species even if they originated in another. If any animal were to be at risk of encountering a hypothetical CWD prion that could jump species I imagine it would be wolves or us because well, we both eat a lot of deer. The chances of this happening are small, that's really important to keep in mind, but they aren't zero.
I know all local places where I live require you to get your deer tested regardless if you're gonna eat it, stuff it or just toss it out. Then again we are a state that hunts quite frequently
Me a person who never saw a raindeer in real life in person, lives in an area of Earth where raindeers are never seen, and have absolutely nothing to do with animals watching this at 1a.m.
I am the funniest RU-vidr of all time I watched my latest video and laughed for 69 minutes straight I am extremely funny I am dangerously funny and I have two girlfriends who think I am extremely dangerously funny and they watch all of my videos thanks for listening dear sabrina
This is one of the main reasons you’re not supposed to feed deer, since that may end up attracting an infected animal that will then infect all the other deer you’ve been feeding
the animals dont know theyre going to die before theyve gone insane to the disease. one disease thats similar, though, is mad cow disease. it can effect humans and is spread through beef
@@scottkrafft6830 it cannot, unless we create nanobots that can unfold misfolded proteins, it's impossible. CWD is caused by a prion, which causes absolutely no symptoms until it's too late, your immune system can't react to it, medicinals can't target it, and it's damn resistant, surviving extreme temperatures, and for a long time. Thus, creating a "cure" for it, using the technology we have is impossible, and creating microscopic machines capable of precisely unfolding specific proteins is...well, hard. Very hard.
Last summer I shot one of these poor fellas. Jaw was hangin loose. Missing one of its legs. And it was walking continuously in a circle. Terrible disease.
The music is so eerie and, combined with the emptiness of the tundra, it shows the eerily unknown crisis. It reminds me of the video game "Never Alone", which also takes place in a snowy environment. Keep on saving the world, Naturforskning!
even after rewatching this countless times i could not tell you what this video is. the sad nature makes it look like its to promote a charity, the visuals and the editing looks like a science video for highschoolers
My older sister was telling me about this disease while watching My Little Pony, I have realized how scary it is knowing there is no cure, it’s 100% fatal, and if it even transmits to one human- the world is pretty much doomed. Edit: I know now humans can’t get it omg..
I would honestly shoot myself if I got a disease like this. But then again, that's just my personality [and] being full of anxiety Edit: I fixed the wording
@@J.A.huscher if I learned I had CWD I would walk off into the forest, dig a grave for myself and live in that area until I start showing symptoms and then I’ll lie down in the grave and eat poisonous berries and sleep
Not so fun fact: While CWD prions don't seem to spread to humans, we do have our own share of prion diseases, most notably Creutzfeld-Jakob's disease and Kuru. CJD and Kuru are also transmissable and 100% fatal, and as far as I'm aware, there is no cure
@@meyague That was how Kuru spread, yes. But Creutzfeld-Jakob is mostly spread through medical procedures with contaminated tissue or it just emerges randomly
wtf I clicked on this expecting a regular infographic animation but now I’m horrified depressed and feeling sorry for these animals why did you do this to me 🥺
another comment said fallow deer have shown to be resistent to it, so there is the potential after some research that we could help the other species move towards that
There has been some research directed at healing similar diseases in humans, it was mentioned on my finals in a test introducing the context. It seems to have yielded no results as of now sadly, I'm sure we'll think of something eventually
It is a chemical process. A misfolded prion is much more stable than a healthy, normally-folded protein. Because the misfolded protein is so stable, it causes others to form its shape when it binds to them. This chemical stability also makes prions very difficult to get rid of. They're insoluble in most solvents, resistant to enzymes (chemicals that break down proteins), and can tolerate high heat without breaking down.
A dream I had recently: It was called 'Cov33', seemed like it started as an agitation, like everyone affected would act a lot more aggressive and impatient. It was the same vibe as a New York city busy street in a movie where everyone is rushing and acts more important than anyone else. They had no empathy or patience. It was a vibe that did not match this rural area I live in so it was really noticeable to us. Nobody had any mercy. The restrictions came back but the people here didn't care just like before, but they were all so agitated and it's like they couldn't see how they were behaving. The Cov33 was first shown on the news and talked about everywhere, it was an absolutely bizarre type which was zombie-like. The people who had it would act like animals, they would roam around just acting weird, they couldn't speak and their eyes were like the eyes of terrified herd animals being hunted. There was a phenomenon with it that 'they' (people in charge) couldn't figure out where every so often multiple times a day, an affected person would look up at the sky and scream in agony with their jaw distorted. They showed clips of it on the news to instill fear. It was horrifying. The person looked so tormented. From there, it really quickly started spreading everywhere and 'they' claimed they could not figure out how it spread or how to protect yourself, it was every man for himself. Needless to say it got real ugly real fast.
@Diva I said it as a sarcastic joke, geez. If anyone in this comment section knows most that Covid is not as deadly as the same media that downplayed it in the early stages of the “pandemic” makes it seem, it’s me.
@Diva again, anime pfp. idc about my pfp 😭 anime pfps always have the worst takes. stop worrying about defending daddy trump and focus on getting some bitches 😕😕😕