#400 - The Truth about EHD & CWD according to The National Deer Alliance: Which is Worse?
The WHTL Podcast - Whitetail Deer Hunting Tactics, Stories & Expert Guests
Jake Hofer
4.9 • 616 Ratings
🗓️ 27 January 2026
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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Buck age structure is the best it's been in 100+ years
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CWD is 100% fatal with no cure or vaccine
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CWD spreads long before symptoms appear
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Sharpshooting removes the most infected deer fastest
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Antlerless harvest is far below what tags allow
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Fewer deer = healthier deer and better habitat
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Hunters manage more wildlife habitat than any group
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Disease management buys time for future vaccines
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Private land is the key battleground for deer health
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Hunters are essential to conservation's future
And So Much More!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We have the best age structure on the buck side of the population that we've had in at least the last 100 years. |
| 0:06.8 | There's nobody listening today or nobody that hunted this past year that has ever hunted a deer herd that has a better age structure from the bucks than right now. |
| 0:14.4 | That's Kip Adams Chief Conservation Officer for the National Deer Alliance. |
| 0:19.0 | And that statement alone should make every deer hunter pause because if things are so good right now, why are biologists this concerned? |
| 0:26.7 | It's not that one is worse than the other. I think that is foolish. I think they're both bad. |
| 0:32.7 | We need to worry about both of them. It's not like, well, hemorrhagic disease is worse. We should |
| 0:36.8 | just focus. No, they are both terrible for deer herds. |
| 0:40.3 | It's no secret. A lot of the country, Ohio specifically got hammered by E.H.D. |
| 0:45.3 | Continues to spread across social media. Deer disease is becoming one of the biggest and most misunderstood topics in hunting right now. |
| 0:52.3 | So instead of adding more noise, we wanted to understand what's real, what's misunderstood, and hunting right now. So instead of adding more noise, we wanted to understand |
| 0:55.0 | what's real, what's misunderstood, and what actually matters. |
| 0:58.0 | Hunters don't want to hear about disease. I get it, but |
| 1:01.0 | CWD is undoubtedly the single largest threat to the future of our deer herds and hunting. |
| 1:07.0 | In this episode of the White Tail podcast presented by Moultry, we dig into the facts behind deer disease, how it's impacting herds across the country, what management tools actually work and where hunters fit into all of it. Here we go. |
| 1:17.6 | Kip, welcome to the White Tail podcast. How you doing this morning? |
| 1:20.6 | I'm doing good. Jake, how are you doing? |
| 1:22.6 | I'm doing great. You know, it's 2026 and another year of white tail hunting is underneath all of our belts. |
| 1:31.1 | Maybe it went great. |
| 1:32.1 | Maybe it didn't go so great. |
| 1:33.4 | But I feel like now is the time to reflect on the resource where we're at. |
| 1:37.3 | All the different habitat projects that people are eager to go and do here shortly. |
| 1:41.4 | But before we get into all that, I'm just going to rip the bandied right off. What do you feel the state of White Tails are right now and where White Tails |
... |
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