00:00They call them zombie deer, wild animals that lose their minds, drool endlessly, and stumble
00:05like the walking dead. Florida just confirmed another case, and no one knows how far it's
00:10spread. But before we start, smash the like button and make sure to subscribe if you haven't,
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00:17The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has detected its second case of
00:22chronic wasting disease, CWD, a malady that has a 100% fatality rate among deer. The first case,
00:30for 2025, of the illness was detected by the Sunshine State's neighboring Georgia. The
00:35University of Minnesota reported at the time that it was the 36th U.S. state to report what the
00:40academic institution dubbed a fatal prion disease. Florida's Conservation Services noted that the
00:46most recent instance was detected in Holmes County near its border with Georgia, close to where the
00:51discovered their first case. The recent case was a road fatality. 1.5-year-old doe sampled less than
00:58a mile south of Florida's 2023 detection, the agency announced on its website. Said 2023 detection
01:05involved a white-tailed deer that was hit by a vehicle on a highway, and the discovery prompted
01:10a disease response plan. Like the pledge accompanying its announcement in 2023, the recent confirmation
01:17stated, The FWC and its agency partners take CWD very seriously and are continuing with their
01:22comprehensive response plan with the goal of containing the disease within the area it was
01:27detected. Because the second case is close to the original case, there will be no changes to the
01:32management or enhanced surveillance zones, the website declared. The government website shows
01:37that the state has since examined a total of 2,406 deer and confirmed the two which tested positive
01:44for CWD. The FWC breakdown also shows that 90 evaluations are still pending. The University of
01:51Minnesota describes the illness as a fatal neurodegenerative disorder caused by infectious
01:57misfolded proteins or prions. The academic institution's online platform notes that it can
02:02be contracted by other members of the Cervidae family, like elk and moose, through environmental
02:07contamination. While not known to affect humans, experts advise against eating the meat of contaminated
02:13animals for the fear that it could trigger bovine spongiform encephalopathy, better known as mad cow
02:19disease. It must be noted that, aside from the loss of weight and bodily functions in the late
02:24stages of the illness, there are no visual symptoms in affected animals. Social media has since caught
02:30wind of the outbreak, and one netizen observed, Eating a zombie deer is 100% safer than anything you buy
02:36in your local grocery stores. Said zombie deer is the moniker given to cervids that have been seen with
02:42large warts on their skin. These unsightly growths are known as cutaneous fibromas, which can be passed
02:47transmitted between deer, rabbits, and squirrels, but are relatively harmless to their hosts. Unlike the
02:53fatal CWD, the only time cutaneous fibromas can lead to their hosts passing away is when they affect their
03:00ability to forage and eat or evade predators. What in the world is a zombie deer? asked another
03:07netizen, unfamiliar with the term connected to the warty animals. It's CWD, chronic wasting disease,
03:14responded another mistakenly, similar to mad cow but only transmitted through deer and moose and like
03:19animals. It's coined the term zombie deer because of what happens, weight loss, poor coordination,
03:25drooling, and a vacant stare as their brains deteriorate into a spongy consistency, attempted
03:32another. It doesn't mean it's walking around deceased, it's in the process of expiring.
03:37CWD has since been addressed at a federal level, with the Chronic Wasting Disease Research and
03:41Management Act being approved by Congress in December 2022. The bill earmarked $35 million per
03:48year for research on the animal illness, which was slated to focus on diseases, detection in live
03:53animals, its prevention, and understanding the spread of the disease.
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