October 26th, 2025 | NGPC

Hunters in the chronic wasting disease testing zone for this year’s firearm deer season will have two options to test their deer: in-person check stations or a free mail-in sampling kit.

Testing in the Platte, Frenchman, Buffalo or Republican units is part of the continued surveillance of chronic wasting disease and its occurrence across Nebraska. Testing and access to results are free of charge to hunters who check their deer in person or submit a sample using a kit.

Nebraska Game and Parks will provide kits only to those intending to Telecheck their harvested deer in one of the four test units.

Hunters may request one at OutdoorNebraska.gov by searching for “CWD” and filling out the “Request a CWD Sampling Kit” form. Hunters will need to select the deer management unit they intend to hunt and provide their permit number to complete the form and receive a kit.

Once processed, the kit with supplies, instructions and a free return shipping label will be mailed to the hunter through the U.S. Postal Service; shipping should take three to seven business days.

Hunters should sample their deer within three days of harvest, and samples kept frozen until mailed back using the free FedEx shipping label. Hunters should not ship samples on Fridays or Saturdays to ensure quality samples for testing.

About 2,000 kits will be available and issued on a first-come, first-served basis.

The kits are being provided as part of a study comparing CWD testing methods as Telecheck becomes more common.

For hunters wishing to check their deer in person, a list of participating check stations will be provided closer to the firearm season at OutdoorNebraska.gov on the Deer Hunting page.

Those outside of the testing zone may pay to have their deer tested through the Nebraska, Kansas or Wyoming veterinary diagnostic centers. Find details at OutdoorNebraska.gov on the Chronic Wasting Disease page.

Since 1997, Game and Parks has tested more than 58,000 deer, with 1,347 deer testing positive for CWD in 68 counties.

Share:    https://ruralradio.com/maxcountry/news/hunters-in-4-units-can-request-a-free-cwd-testing-kit/

by Jim Robertson

As I write this it’s ‘General Deer Season’ and although the bucks are wisely hanging out in the high country above the valley floor, I just heard a gunshot when I stepped outside that could easily have resulted in a hunting accident for any of us living in this sparsely populated area,  including my dog, or people’s horses and cows or the does and their fawns who call these foothills their home.

The following is a fictionalized account, based on countless actual hunting accidents, that takes the reader inside a hunter’s mind after one such tragedy…

I can’t believe I shot the boy. He was 12 years old, but I still called him Markey, and he called me Uncle Mel. He was growing up fast, and I was honored to take him out on his first deer hunt. His mother, my sister-in-law, bought him the standard safety equipment and Markey wore his orange vest religiously. 

I don’t know, I guess he must have been bent over to tighten up his new boots (he had been complaining that they didn’t fit him right), but all I saw was a patch of brown hair that looked like fur (it was hard to tell at that distance in the low light and from behind the thick brush we were hunting in).

We were following a nice buck we had seen earlier that morning. Its tracks were fresh wherever we found them and although I’ve killed plenty of deer throughout my life, this one had a rack of impressive antlers that anyone would have loved to claim as a trophy for their wall. I was thinking of mounting it head and all.

I should have let Markey harvest it for his first buck, but I didn’t want to miss the chance and let it get away, so I took a shot. I knew it wouldn’t be a clean kill-shot, but I figured it would drop the deer and give me a chance to go catch up and finish it off. What I found when I got there, I’ll never forget for the rest of my days…

Instead of a prize buck, the pitiful sight of Markey’s bloodied body will haunt me from this day on whenever I raise my rifle and sight through the scope. Now, rather than the elation of going to the bar and reliving the adventure by bragging about it to anyone who would listen, I’d have to face the boy’s mother and explain why, after losing her husband—my brother—to a deadly fall from a tree stand a few hunting seasons back, she now would have to mourn the death of her first-born son as well.

It just doesn’t seem fair that what should have been a proud moment shared with all who would appreciate the thrill of the hunt, I would now have something so embarrassing to try to live down. I had rehearsed the story over and over in my mind about how deer had gotten so overpopulated and had become a road hazard and that as a hunter we were doing society a favor by thinning the herd, but now I had to dread telling the story of a hunting accident to the Sherriff and anyone to else who wanted to know about it. Instead of being a hero, I would now be seen as some kind of criminal. But hunting is legal, and I was just doing my part to share the experience with the younger generation so they wouldn’t lose touch with an important tradition. 

I know my hunting buddies will understand when I tell them about the accident and I expect to get a call from someone in the NRA or the Safari Club or one of the other hunting groups to coach me on what to say to the press, but I half expect to get some looks or hear people talking in hushed tones about me at the local grocery store until this thing blows over. As bad as this all is, it would be worse if some animal rights or anti-hunting do-gooders got wind of it and tried to use it to stop hunting for good. Heck, for many of us, it’s our favorite sport; we don’t know what we’d do without hunting season to look forward to.

I can just hear some of their types saying that hunting is cruel and unnecessary and that we should just let the natural predators control the deer like they always have. Well, I’m sure there’s a lot of reasons to keep on hunting. I can’t think of them now, but I know we didn’t kill-off wolves and control cougars for nothing. The fact that it gives more game for us to hunt is reason enough. Aren’t humans more important than wolves, bears or mountain lions? I wouldn’t want to go on living if I wasn’t better than those animals.

I remember one of the last things Markey said to me just the other day. He said, “Uncle Mel, why don’t the non-hunters appreciate what we do to keep the deer numbers down?” I told him, “I don’t know, Markey, they seem to have some kind of hair-brained idea that nature can take care of itself without us. If that were true, I’d hang up my gun forever—which I don’t plan to ever do, and I hope you don’t ever either.” “No sir,” Markey told me, “Now that you showed me the ropes, I plan to be out here hunting every fall for the rest of my life, like you.” Besides some of the big bucks and bull elk I’ve shot over the years, that was one of the proudest moments in all my life.

As I crouched down to check for a pulse, which I couldn’t imagine finding since the bullet had gone clear through his head and almost removed the top part of his skull, I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye and I looked up to see the buck we were after looking down on us from the top of a steep, snow-covered ridge. Although I know he couldn’t possibly have been thinking it, it’s almost like his expression was one of disdain—like he was thinking, ‘You humans will kill anyone, even your own kind.’

The buck then turned away and crossed the ridge out of sight. I looked back at the boy and quickly gave up on trying to find any sign of life—he was surely gone. I covered him up with my coat (I was too hot for it now anyway), then stood up, turning my back on the scene and took a step or two away. Time seemed to be moving slowly as I pulled my ‘smartphone’ out of my back pocket and dialed 911. The sheriff’s dispatcher told me they’d send a helicopter out I should keep my phone on so the ambulance crew could find my location. As I hung up, I thought about the fact that wildlife don’t have the chance to be rescued—when they’re shot, their life is over, no matter how long it takes for them to die.

The whole situation was turning ugly, and I found myself thinking that maybe this would be my last hunting season. It just wasn’t worth it to put so many others through so much for a sport or hobby. Maybe I should switch to hiking instead since that’s the only real exercise you get in the sport anyway, besides packing out the meat from a kill which can be treacherous when you have to posthole through fresh snow over blowdowns with a heavy pack on your back.

The more I think about it, this is my last hunting season. My buddies will understand, and if they don’t then maybe they weren’t my true friends after all. And to Hell with the Safari Club and the NRA. They’s just a bunch of Trump supporters and I’ve always voted Democrat anyway. I’m sure predators can keep the deer populations in check without Me and Markey’s help. They’ve been doing a good job without human hunters for millions of years. And if folks would just slow down—and maybe if there were fewer cars on the roads—there wouldn’t be so many accidents involving deer. Truth be told, we weren’t really hunting to help anyone else but ourselves anyway.    

I’m hearing the helicopter now, coming up from the wide valley below. At least I won’t have to pack out Markey’s body—that would make this whole thing even more depressing. I just hope the boy’s mother forgives me. Heck, I hope I can forgive myself. It might be good time to join C.A.S.H. and become an anti-hunter to redeem myself…

Since September, turkey and egg farms have lost millions of birds, renewing pressure on food prices and biosecurity

Turkeys stand in their pen at the Seven Acres Farm in North Reading, Massachusetts, on November 21, 2007, one day before the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

by Nsikan Akpan

October 24, 2025

Another bird flu season has arrived for North America’s poultry farms, and the early signs do not look promising.

Since September 1, an early start for flu season, outbreaks have wiped out 1.2 million turkeys from farms supplying meat for delis and dinner tables. This toll is nearly 20 times more than what occurred during the same time frame in 2024. Likewise, chicken farms producing consumer eggs have lost 5.5 million hens, or twice as many as at the beginning of last year’s severe run of bird flu.

The timing is unfortunate as the United States approaches Thanksgiving, a period of communal feasts when consumer shopping for turkeys and eggs rises. Turkey inventories are already strained because of bird flu-related losses that have accumulated this calendar year.

“Over 2.2 million turkeys have been affected by HPAI [highly pathogenic avian influenza] so far in 2025,” said Bernt Nelson, an economist with American Farm Bureau Federation, who, in early October, released a market analysis about the U.S. turkey industry. Citing the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Nelson reports that farmers have raised 195 million turkeys in 2025—the lowest tally in 40 years.

Meanwhile, estimates released in August showed that U.S. egg-laying flocks were on the cusp of recovering from the devastation wrought during the beginning of 2025.

October’s human case in Mexico, potentially contracted via a chicken roaming a courtyard, underscores the risks farmers face if exposed to infected fowl. The 23-year-old woman was hospitalized.

Full story: https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/bird-flu-roars-back-what-it-means-for-thanksgiving?fbclid=IwY2xjawNpvfJleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHkw4Ok429wVCYbTAn9clN0AGGp-DwIqKMBvPfLW4pMVhGKtYuiHKDNtKR085_aem_4g8ol2Qr0Ce2qxqIEFczGw

The famous bird may be a bigger chunk of your holiday budget this year. Here’s what you can expect to pay for your Thanksgiving turkey.

David Watsky

Oct. 25, 2025 4:00 a.m. PT

2 min read

Your Thanksgiving turkey dinner will have a significantly higher price tag this year, as a worsening bird flu epidemic threatens US flocks and turkey supplies.

CNET received data from industry watchdog Farm Forward that reveals the scale of the crisis. Approximately 3 million turkeys have died due to Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, or HPAI, so far this year. That’s already more than double the total bird flu deaths in 2024 (1.25 million), but still far less than the furious 2022 epidemic that killed over 9 million.

According to government data, this loss — representing roughly 1.45% of the total US turkey flock — is driving wholesale turkey prices up more than 26% from last year. Other projections, including from Bernt Nelson, an economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation who spoke to The New York Times, have the jump in turkey prices closer to 40%.

As reported by Axios, the US turkey flock is at a 40-year low. According to the USDA, just 4.8 billion pounds of production is expected, down 5% from 2024.

An accelerating outbreak

The spread of HPAI has accelerated dramatically in recent months, just ahead of the critical holiday season:

• 110 individual outbreaks have occurred on commercial turkey farms in 2025. 
• The outbreak is intensifying: 34 commercial turkey flocks have been affected since Aug. 2025, with 21 flocks hit in Sept. alone and 15 already in Oct.
• Minnesota leads the nation in losses, with 962,300 turkeys culled. 
• Ohio has experienced the highest number of outbreaks, with 41 individual farms affected (resulting in 511,400 turkey deaths). 

Federal policy under scrutiny

While the immediate crisis affects consumers’ wallets, Farm Forward argues that long-standing federal policies, maintained across multiple administrations, have enabled conditions conducive to the massive and persistent spread of HPAI. 

The organization contends that the federal government and poultry industry have prioritized profits over public health by allowing the operation of crowded concentrated animal feeding facilities, resisting mandatory HPAI testing protocols and declining to implement vaccination programs for poultry, despite their effectiveness in other countries.

The H5N1 bird flu strain has caused millions of deaths among wild birds and mammals since 2021

Peter Hobson

Friday 24 October 2025 16:58 BST

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Hundreds of seal pups have been discovered dead on Heard Island in the sub-Antarctic, with Australian scientists investigating whether a destructive bird flu that has swept the globe is responsible.

The virulent H5N1 strain has caused millions of deaths among wild birds and mammals since 2021, also affecting poultry and dairy farms and infecting some farmworkers.

While “not a confirmed detection” at this stage, Australia’s agriculture department is sending samples from the dead seals for urgent testing.

The ministry added that symptoms consistent with H5 bird flu on Heard Island were “not unexpected,” as the virus has already been found on the nearby French Kerguelen and Crozet islands.

Off the migration routes of big birds such as geese that spread infection, Australia is the only continent free of the highly contagious virus. But further spread through Antarctica could eventually raise the risk of infection from the south.

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Heard Island would be the farthest the flu has reached in the Antarctic since arriving from South America in 2023.

Formed by a 2,745-meter (9,006-foot) volcano that rears up from the sea more than 4,000 km (2,486 miles) southwest of Perth and 1,700 km (1,060 miles) north of Antarctica, it is a breeding ground for large populations of penguins, seals and seabirds.

Scientists of Australia’s Antarctic Division who spent 10 days there found healthy animals until late in their trip when they encountered hundreds of dead elephant seal pups, said Julie McInnes, one of its ecologists.

“It was a significant proportion of the pups in that section (of beach),” said McInnes, who was on the trip.

It was unclear whether the virus will spread to other areas or species on the island and researchers will visit again around year-end, she added.

The agriculture ministry said the confirmation of bird flu would not substantially increase the risk of its spread to Australia.

Australia has been bracing for the arrival of H5N1 bird flu, tightening biosecurity at farms, testing shore birds for disease, vaccinating vulnerable species and war-gaming response plans.

• Oct 24, 2025

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• https://www.winonapost.com/community/don-t-let-a-treestand-fall-dampen-hunting-season/article_98344258-37be-482f-8946-3e17bc5a5ffd.html

From: Emplify Health by Gundersen

ADVERTISING

Treestands have been popular with deer hunters for decades. In fact, more than 80% of firearm hunters and 90% of archery (bow) hunters hunt from a treestand or elevated position. That increase has led to a worrying trend. According to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR), falls from treestands are now the leading cause of injury among deer hunters, even exceeding the risk of gunshot wounds.

The risk of injury increases with the frequency of treestand use, but statistics show a trend. According to the DNR, for serious hunters who use treestands from late summer through early winter each year, the lifetime risk over a 50-year hunting career is approximately 1 in 20 (5%) for requiring medical attention due to a fall.

Megan Anderson, trauma injury prevention coordinator at Emplify Health by Gundersen, says there is an impact of these injuries on emergency rooms.

“Falls from treestands place a significant burden on emergency medical services and trauma centers, often resulting in serious injuries that require extensive treatment and rehabilitation,” she said. “These incidents not only affect the health and well-being of hunters but also strain health care resources during peak hunting seasons.”

Anderson also stresses the importance of prevention.

“The good news is that many treestand falls are preventable,” she added. “Hunters can reduce their risk by using proper safety equipment, such as full-body harnesses, and by following safe climbing and hunting practices. Education and awareness are key to ensuring hunters return home safely each season.”

To help hunters stay safe, Anderson recommends the following tips:

• Always wear a full-body safety harness when climbing and hunting from treestands.
• Use a haul line to raise and lower equipment, keeping your hands free while climbing.
• Inspect treestands and climbing gear regularly for wear and damage before each use.

As treestand hunting remains popular, these findings underscore the urgent need for increased safety measures and hunter education to reduce the risk of falls and related injuries.

For more information on treestand safety and injury prevention, hunters are encouraged to consult local wildlife agencies and safety organizations.