
Deer Farmer Jason Smith Fights CWD and Government Overreach
On this episode of Across the Pond, host Trent Loos talks with Jason Smith, a deer farmer from Alberta, Canada. Jason left the oil and gas industry in the late 1990s to raise whitetail deer, later building a high fence hunting business in Saskatchewan. He and Trent dig into Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), a prion disease that has shaken the deer farming industry. Jason explains how breeding deer with certain genetic markers showed resistance to CWD, then opens up about losing his 550-head herd after the CFIA ordered a full depopulation in 2023, even though every tested animal came back negative.






