As I sit on a beach chair during my Florida vacation, I stumble across this article on social media that reads “DO NOT EAT”. I typically don’t like being told what to do, so I hastily click on it. I am redirected to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources website, where this article explains that there was a “DO NOT EAT” clause in effect for Clarks Marsh in Oscoda County. The article tells us that 1 out of 20 deer in that area, tested positive for “high levels of PFOS” and that “the DHHS put this advisory out and the MDNR wanted to make hunters aware of this problem”. The article then explains that they have been testing deer around the state and that the MDHHS have deployed PFAS response teams in attempt to contain this outbreak.
I shut my laptop and grabbed my phone. This could be a serious problem! I know people who hunt up there and one of which harvested a deer 2 days ago. How could live with myself if I let them consume contaminated meat, or at least tell them about it so they could get it tested!?… But then a different and, in my opinion, more logical response was triggered inside of me. Frustration
What in the hell is PFOS and why do I care?! I just read a 1/2 page article from a few, seemingly credible organizations, about an apparent spread of, yet another infection in my beloved Michigan whitetail. This article scared me enough to let me blindly share it on Facebook and call my Northern brothers and demand they throw away all of their meat. All of this in about 14 seconds, and I didn’t even know what PFOS even stands for.
I will spare you most of the details of PFOS because this is hardly the point of this blog, but here are the cliff notes of my research. Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) is a synthetic Fluorocarbon that was created by 3M in 1949. This product is used to decrease liquid tension in chemicals and other compounds to make the final product thinner and more absorbent. This is the primary ingredient in Scotchguard and other deck stains. PFOS was also used in AFFF fire suppression foams but has since been replaced with organic based polymers. In 2000, 3M released a statement saying they were going to “Phase out” the production of PFOS, but the product is still heavily being produced in China, 18 years later. PFOS is known as a global pollutant and has been investigated and monitored in wildlife and the human body since the 70’s.
All of that being said, my question is why is this my first time hearing of this in my Michigan whitetail? Now, I know I am young and I am hardly the most up-to-date when it comes to articles and things of this nature, but I have to imagine I would have heard something when I was eating animals 20 years ago. It seems, in the last 7 years I’ve watched multiple different outbreaks “plague” our whitetail population. CWD, TB, HD and now PFOS. most have been around for hundreds of years and will continue to stay for hundreds more.
I have never heard of anyone having any issue while eating game in Michigan, but if you were to ask any outsider, we should all be dead. I am not saying it hasn’t happened because certainly these things exist, but are they really worth all of this commotion? Or is this something we can solve together behind closed doors? I have a hard time believing that these issues are actually as problematic as they are portrayed. Lets take CWD. Its hard for me to believe that the magnitude of CWD is so overwhelming, that i need to kill all of the deer on my property in Jackson County, when you can’t even tell me how CWD is contracted. Some say its in the soil others say its genetic, but everyone agrees that it’s not transmittable to other species, and its been around for a long time. So… Why now?
Is this only an issue now, because we live in a world where we pay serious tax dollars for whitetails to get vasectomies, to reduce heard sizes in populated cities? Is it because the easiest way to make money in todays society, is to create a problem and sell the solution? Is it because people today will cure their small problem by infecting themselves with a bigger problem? I have no idea why, but I do know that if people spent more time enjoying nature and less time fixing it, we just might have some left when were gone.