You may have answered one of my questions. If the animal can only be infected by eating another infected animal (or by injecting tissue from an infected animal into their brains) then how did the wild population get it? If it's *common* in wildlife with only supplemental feed, then I fear our meat supply is probably in worse shape than I ever imagined. We may be in real trouble.
An earlier poster said something about prions not being the "accepted" theory. I believe that is false and that the prion/protien? theory is accepted. There is another researcher that has been working on an alternative theory. I think, or I know, that more info is available from the Chronis Wasting Disease Alliance at CWD.org or something along those lines. Not hard to find.
But when one looks at a map of CWD and to see the geographical distances between outbreaks, one can wonder. Captive heards are blamed for the disease spread, though the evidence has not been 100%. I asked someone with a bit more knowledge if it could be possible for a spontaneous outbreak--he hadn't heard anything like that. I wondered is another migratory species carried it from zone to zone. Who knows?