The incurable neurodegenerative disease is crippling deer, elk and moose populations
TRACKING INFECTION Chronic wasting disease has crippled deer, elk and moose populations throughout the northern hemisphere. But scientists have identified an organic soil compound, humic acid, that may prevent its spread.
MIKE HOPPER/KANSAS DEPT. OF WILDLIFE, PARKS & TOURISM
An acid found in rich humus soil breaks down the misfolded brain proteins — called prions — that cause chronic wasting disease.
When concentrations of humic acid similar to those found in soils were applied to diseased elk brain tissue, chemical signatures of the infectious prions were nearly erased, researchers report online November 29 in PLOS Pathogens. That suggests that the acid somehow degrades the warped protein, making it less infectious, says Judd Aiken, a prion disease researcher at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.
Chronic wasting disease, an…
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Exposing the Big Game 
I do hope we don’t underestimate this disease and think there is always a simple solution. I’ve always wondered if limiting usually migratory animals such as deer and moose to smaller and smaller locations is (one) of the culprits of this. And, it started in farmed ungulates, didn’t it, a very unnatural condition. 😦
It started with cattle-growers putting ground up cattle into cow feed…
Yes, that too, wanting to squeeze every last cent out of animals, defying Mother Nature by feeding animal products to herbivores. We screw everything up.
But I do also wonder about confining migratory animals to smaller and smaller habitat. Photos of the amounts of ticks on moose I have seen just is hard to stomach.
I know that ticks are a separate issue, but the confinement to smaller habitat I wonder is something in common with other diseases. I remember I had read that prions stay in the soil:
https://news.wisc.edu/soil-bound-prions-remain-infectious/