The link is not 100% but two hunters eating from the same deer population and falling ill at around the same time is extremely unlikely to be a coincidence.
We are essentially one mutation away from this spreading between humans and that would be very, very bad.
Putting it out of its misery and not wasting what could be good venison meat?
Sounds more merciful than shooting a young healthy animal.
But I don’t know, I don’t hunt.
If the poor thing’s visibly suffering from CWD, it absolutely is not good meat. When I was living in the sticks, I didn’t know a single subsistence hunter who’d eat a visibly-diseased buck-- the sport hunters might’ve still gone after them, but I don’t tolerate sport hunters in my physical locality, so I don’t talk to them.
Thanks for pointing out my mistake. :)