Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD): Research and News
Links to some articles may no longer be active, but the article can often be found by typing the title into a search engine. As shown in the images, deer with late stage CWD will be thin as they waste away. USGS CWD Map
Research
White-tailed deer population declines in a high-prevalence chronic wasting disease region of Arkansas, USA 2026 PloS one
... Male densities declined by an average 23% (95% CI: 5% - 31%) per year compared to 15% (95% CI: 2% - 23%) yearly declines for females. These findings suggest that CWD can negatively impact deer populations through direct reductions in density ..,
Evaluating the effects of risk-based sharpshooting on transmission of chronic wasting disease in white-tailed deer 2025 Authorea
... Using CWD in Illinois as a case study, we parameterized the model using contact and behavioral data from GPS-collared deer that influence key components of pathogen transmission (e.g., contact and movement) and sharpshooting in the CWD endemic area. All strategies we examined reduced prevalence and spread... targeting areas with the highest number of positive detections consistently resulted in the highest reduction in prevalence and spread. Delaying the start of sharpshooting by 5 to 10 years resulted in a lower prevalence, with immediate implementation being the most effective...
PLGA nanoparticles for oral delivery of prion-specific antigen: a novel approach to chronic wasting disease vaccination 2025 Scientific Reports
... We have developed a recombinant dimeric deer prion protein (Ddi) vaccine against CWD that has shown promising immune responses when injected subcutaneously (s.c)... we have developed an oral vaccine utilizing poly lactic co-glycolic acid (PLGA) nanoparticles ... This approach is paving the way for developing an oral vaccine against CWD...
Elks carry important genetic variant December 6, 2025 Oregon, Ag UPDATE
... Alfred Roca, professor of animal sciences at University of Illinois, said, “We previously tested a small number of Columbian white-tailed deer in Oregon’s Douglas County, and we found that they were genetically very disadvantaged when it came to CWD. We didn’t find the protective variant of the gene in a single deer. That’s why we wanted to look at the Oregon elk population, because if the elk get CWD, it's quite likely that Columbian white-tailed deer will get it as well.” ...
Development of High‐Throughput Genomic Resources to Inform White‐Tailed Deer Population and Disease Management 2025 Molecular Ecology Resources
... Here, we generated whole genome resequencing data for 44 free‐ranging deer from three regions in their central and eastern North American range and identified over 89 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)... These genomic tools offer a standard set of markers that will enable researchers and managers to address important questions related to white‐tailed deer and CWD management...
Almost half of Oregon elk population carries advantageous genetic variant against CWD, study shows November 18, 2025 eurekalert.org
... a new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign shows that about half of Oregon elk carry a gene that makes them less susceptible to the disease... We are studying how common the advantageous variant of the prion gene is in Oregon’s elk population ... We previously tested a small number of Columbian white-tailed deer in Oregon’s Douglas County, and we found that they were genetically very disadvantaged when it came to CWD...
U of M researchers studying how CWD lingers and travels in environment October 12, 2025 Minnesota, MPR News
... Four years ago, deer infected by chronic wasting disease were illegally dumped on public land in Beltrami County. Since then, a team from the University of Minnesota Center for Prion Research and Outreach has been studying CWD’s effects on the environment... fenced in about 11 acres creating an exclusionary zone to limit potential spread ... CWD can remain in the soil and water for 2-16 years...
Software code for simulating elk and chronic wasting disease dynamics on the National Elk Refuge (version 2.0)PC Cross 2025, Wyoming, US Geological Survey (USGS) Software
... This software release contains the code necessary to run the chronic wasting disease (CWD) and elk population models used to support the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision on whether to continue to continue supplemental feeding of elk on the National Elk Refuge (NER)...
Apparent stability masks underlying change in a mule deer herd with unmanaged chronic wasting disease 2025, Colorado, Communications Biology
... Here we describe unexpected stability in prevalence and abundance in a mule deer herd where CWD has been left unmanaged. High apparent prevalence (~30%) since at least 2005 ... Data include infected deer homozygous for serine at PRNP codon 225 monitored at Table Mesa herd near Boulder, Colorado, USA, during 2005–2008 or 2018–2020... Despite stable appearances, prion disease nonetheless impairs adult survival and likely resilience in this deer herd ...
[PDF] Using large language models to investigate the origin of chronic wasting disease 2025 Issues in Information Systems
... The collected information supports the common theory that chronic wasting disease (CWD) in North America originated in 1967 at a research facility in Fort Collins,
Colorado, where deer were reported to have been exposed to sheep with a similar disease, scrapie ...
Study showing doe-to-fawn CWD spread may have implications for deer herds September 8, 2025
CIDRAP - University of Minnesota
... Samuel said that CWD-positive fawns may die of infection soon after they're born, although CWD clinical signs typically don't develop until 1.5 to 2 years after infection... the study ... demonstrating for the first time that chronic wasting disease (CWD) can be transmitted in utero from adult does to their fawns (vertical transmission) may require rethinking susceptibility and risk in deer populations ...
Researchers Just Revealed a Disturbing Way Deer Are Getting Chronic Wasting Disease August 20, 2025, Yahoo
... The study, published in Scientific Reports this month, found that free-ranging whitetail does infected with CWD can pass the disease onto their unborn fawns... first study that provides evidence of CWD infections being transmitted in utero in wild deer ...
... Our results show that deer harboring the G96S allele have significantly lowered odds of infection within Canadian herds. Furthermore, the prevalence of this allele has increased significantly in farmed deer over the past seventeen years. Establishing the dynamic genetic background of Canadian deer populations will inform future disease management initiatives...
Vertical transmission of chronic wasting disease in free-ranging white-tailed deer populations August 5, 2025 Nature
... Mounting evidence provides another mechanism of CWD transmission, that from mother-to-offspring, including during pregnancy (vertical transmission). Here we describe the detection of the infectious CWD agent and prion seeding in fetal and reproductive tissues collected from healthy-appearing free-ranging white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) from multiple U.S. states ...
Assessment of Mammalian Scavenger and Wild White-Tailed Deer Activity at White-Tailed Deer Farms 2025 Viruses
... White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in the wild and on cervid farms have drawn the attention of state wildlife agencies and animal health agencies as Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) has spread across North America. Deer farm regulations have been implemented to reduce direct contact between wild and farmed cervids; however, evidence suggests that indirect contact to infectious prions passed through the alimentary tracts of scavengers may be an important transmission pathway ... Despite the large number of wild deer observed, we found that interactions between wild and farmed deer at the fence line were infrequent (six direct contacts observed). In contrast, mammalian scavengers were frequently observed inside and outside of the fence...
Distribution of chronic wasting disease (CWD) prions in tissues from experimentally exposed coyotes (Canis latrans) 2025 PloS one
... coyote (Canis latrans), which has been previously shown to pass transmission-relevant prion titers in their feces for at least three days after ingesting prion-positive brain material. The current study followed up on these findings and evaluated the distribution of prions in multiple tissues from the same coyotes. Our results show that prions persist in the digestive tract of prion-exposed coyotes five days after exposure...
A hedonic analysis of chronic wasting disease's effect on hunting lease prices 2025 Forest Policy and Economics
... CWD presence was associated with a 22 % reduction in lease price. Ripple effects of lost revenue due to CWD on the regional economy can be substantial...
Differences between the white-tailed and mule deer chronic wasting disease agents after passage through sheep July, 2025 - Frontiers in Veterinary Science
... This data suggests that WTD CWD is unlikely to present a major risk to sheep but could be transmissible back to the cervid population. However, MD sheep CWD could present risk to both the cervid and sheep population...
Detection of chronic wasting disease prions in soil at an illegal white-tailed deer carcass disposal site 2025, Minnesota, Prion
... We detected PrPSc in 26 of 201 soil samples across 15 locations within the illegal disposal site and one on the farm that housed the cervids. Importantly, a subset of RT-QuIC positive soil samples was collected from soils where carcasses were recovered, providing direct evidence that environmental contamination resulted from this illegal activity. These findings reveal that improper cervid carcass disposal practices may have important implications for ongoing CWD transmission through the environment...
The Southwest Wisconsin CWD Study: How Specific Deer Illustrate Results June, 2025 DNR News
... This study conclusively demonstrated that CWD reduces deer survival, and it corroborated what studies from other states have found, which is also occurring in Wisconsin. Of course, CWD can reduce survival by killing deer outright, aka "dying of CWD," but it can also do so by making them more vulnerable to hunters, cars, coyotes and so on...
A day in the life of a migrating mule deer May 9, 2025 Wyoming Public Radio
... our mule deer herd here with the Upper Shoshone, those numbers actually increase over the last seven to eight years. What we've seen in this herd is an increase in Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) rates from about zero to 5% in 2017, to over 20% this last year. Some of that we're trying to understand why that is occurring...
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) prion detection in environmental and biological samples from a taxidermy site and nursing facility, and instruments used in surveillance activities 2025 - Science of The Total Environment, 2025
... CWD prions were identified in a taxidermy and deer nursing facility. Contaminated samples included waters, soils, dermestid beetles, domestic flies and a dumpster. Surgical instruments used to collect deer samples can get contaminated with CWD prions. Our results suggest that taxidermy practices actively contribute in the spreading of CWD...
Background data for: Soil characteristics at artificial salt licks and their potential impacts on occurrence of chronic wasting disease 2025 Dataverse
... The high salt content in the salt lick soils may stimulate geophagy and as the soil is heavily contaminated by animal excretions, this may facilitate prion transmission. In addition, the high pH and ionic strength in the salt licks soils increases both the cation attraction and anion diffusion towards the soil particles thereby facilitating both persistence and transmission of CWD...
RT-QuIC detection of chronic wasting disease prions in third eyelids from white-tailed deer March, 2025 Scientific Reports
... The United States Department of Agriculture-approved tests for diagnosing CWD use obex and/or retropharyngeal lymph nodes, which are challenging to collect as the tissues require anatomical knowledge, skill, and time to dissect. Third eyelids contain lymphoid follicles and are easier to collect. We determine whether third eyelids from naturally infected white-tailed deer are a reliable tissue for detecting CWD prions ... Our results support that testing third eyelids is a potentially more efficient way for management agencies to improve and expand their CWD surveillance...
Detection of Chronic Wasting Disease Prions in Raw, Processed, and Cooked Elk Meat, Texas, USA - Emerging Infectious Diseases, 2025
... We describe chronic wasting disease (CWD) prion detection in raw and cooked meat from a CWD-positive elk. We found limited zoonotic potential in CWD prions from those meat products. Nonetheless, risk for transmission to humans is still unclear ...
Chronic wasting disease prions on deer feeders and wildlife visitation to deer feeding areas. 2025. Mississippi. The Journal of Wildlife Management
... We show that deer feeders in free‐ranging
populations with high CWD prevalence become contaminated with CWD prions quickly, becoming a potential site of exposure of deer to CWD prions. Our results also demonstrate the ability to find evidence of prion contamination on deer feeders, even in areas where CWD is newly detected...
Detection of chronic wasting disease prions in the farm soil of the Republic of Korea - mSphere, 2025
... Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a highly contagious prion disease
affecting free-ranging and farmed cervids. CWD continues to spread uncontrollably
across North America, and multiple cases are detected annually in the Republic of Korea. Prions shed from CWD-infected animals remain infectious in the soil for years, serving as infectivity reservoirs that facilitate horizontal transmission of the disease... we have demonstrated for the first time that prions in the soil of CWD-affected farms can be reliably detected using a combination of serial soil extraction and a prion amplification technique...
Vertical transmission of chronic wasting disease in free-ranging white-tailed deer populations - bioRxiv, 2025
... Disease transmission among cervids has historically been attributed to direct animal-to-animal contact with ‘secreta’ (saliva, blood, urine, and feces) containing the infectious agent, and indirect contact with the agent shed to the environment in these bodily components. Mounting evidence provides another mechanism of CWD transmission, that from mother-to-offspring, including during pregnancy (vertical transmission). Here we describe the detection of the infectious CWD agent and prion seeding in fetal and reproductive tissues ...
Sensitive, non-invasive detection of chronic wasting disease in wild and captive white-tailed deer using fecal volatile profiling - bioRxiv, 2025
... Here, we use two-dimensional gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GCxGC-MS) to detect volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released from the feces of white-tailed deer (WTD) for differentiation of the feces of CWD-negative and CWD-positive animals... Our data suggest that detection of VOCs from the feces of WTD — both in captive and wild populations — can serve as a highly sensitive and non-invasive technique for identifying CWD infection in living animals...
The effectiveness of harvest for limiting wildlife disease: Insights from 20 years of chronic wasting disease in Wyoming - Ecological Applications, 2025
... Although high harvest is unlikely to completely eradicate CWD, our analysis suggests that maintaining hunting pressure on adult
males is an important tactic for slowing CWD epidemics within mule deer herds ...
CWD decimating southwestern Wisconsin deer herds, officials say January 22, 2025 CIDRAP
... The researchers calculated that the likelihood of survival from one year to the next among healthy females was 83%, compared with 41% in those with CWD. The respective percentages among uninfected and infected males were 69% and 17%. "If CWD continues to spread and its prevalence continues to increase, populations will likely face further declines," they wrote ... in a news release ..,
DNR Announces Primary Results Of Southwest Wisconsin CWD, Deer And Predator Study September 22, 2025 Wisconsin, WEAU on MSN
... A recording of the NRB meeting, including this presentation, is available [on Youtube] ... CWD is substantially reducing the annual survival probability of both male and female white-tailed deer ... when the CWD prevalence rates of females surpasses about 29%, deer populations are expected to begin declining... researchers do not expect CWD-affected deer herds to become extirpated ..,
CWD prions found in moose, deer, reindeer muscles in Norway, highlighting potential risk to people January 14, 2025 cidrap.umn
... Researchers who late last week reported finding chronic wasting disease (CWD) prions in the muscles of infected moose, red deer, and reindeer in Norway ...
... The increased CWD prevalence and transmission associated with the continue feeding alternative resulted in lower elk population sizes by year 20 ...
Detection of Prions in Wild Pigs (Sus scrofa) from Areas with Reported Chronic Wasting Disease Cases, United States. Emerg Infect Dis. 2025 Jan;31(1):168-173. doi: 10.3201/eid3101.240401
... Using a prion amplification assay, we identified prions in tissues from wild pigs (Sus scrofa) living in areas of the United States with variable chronic wasting disease (CWD) epidemiology. Our findings indicate that scavenging swine could play a role in disseminating CWD and could therefore influence its epidemiology, geographic distribution, and interspecies spread...
... The strategy includes improving detection methods, advancing our understanding of the mechanisms of transmission, incorporating the human dimensions and socio-economic effects of CWD in scientific studies, developing tools for decision making, and understanding potential effects of this disease on ecosystem health ...
JJ Vaske, CA Miller - Wildlife Research, 2024
... CWD existed in Kansas for only 4 years when the study was conducted. Kansas hunters reported the highest percentage of correct knowledge questions. By comparison, the disease had existed in Illinois for 20 years; Illinois hunters reported the lowest percentage of correct responses. Knowledge is influenced by the newness of a disease. With a new disease, people attend to information campaigns. Over time, experience tempers concerns and knowledge about diseases...
Disease and migratory tactic mediate the nutritional benefits of irrigated agriculture to mule deer 2024 Wyoming, The Journal of Wildlife Management
... Proximity to agriculture in winter, however, decreased adult survival for migrants and residents (29 percentage points decreased probability of survival for every 1-km closer to agriculture) and increased the probability of having CWD at time of death...
MNPRO receives nearly $500000 to continue chronic wasting disease research December 1, 2024 The Minnesota Daily
... The Minnesota Center for Prion Research and Outreach (MNPRO) received $483,497 in federal funding to continue research on chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer. The grant came from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services, according to a press release ...
Use of Biosecurity Practices to Prevent Chronic Wasting Disease in Minnesota Cervid Herds - Preventive Veterinary Medicine, 2024
... Among all producers, 9.6% (95% CI 4.6-14.6) reported farmed cervid escapes in the past 3 years (even temporarily) and 0.7% (95% CI 0.0-2.2) of producers reported wild white-tailed deer (WTD) inside perimeter fencing ... Overall, results identified direct and indirect contact exposures from both farmed and wild cervids to Minnesota herds, with many producers reporting potential contact with wild cervids through direct and multiple indirect pathways...
Hunters' Knowledge, Perceived Risks, Agency Trust Associated with Chronic Wasting Disease, and Beliefs about CWD Management 2024 - Wildlife Research
... CWD existed in Kansas for only four years when the study was conducted. Kansas hunters reported the highest percentage of correct knowledge questions. By comparison, the disease had existed in Illinois for 20 years; Illinois hunters reported the lowest percentage of correct responses. Knowledge is influenced by the newness of a disease. With a new disease, people attend to information campaigns. Over time, experience tempers concerns and knowledge about diseases...
A twisted protein sheds light on chronic wasting disease in deer November 12, 2024 Science News
... The first detailed structure of an infectious prion that causes chronic wasting disease, or CWD, reveals features that could help guide vaccine development or explain why the illness hasn’t yet made the leap to people, researchers report October 24 in Acta Neuropathologica...
CDC Journal Features Des Moines University and USDA Study on Spread of Prion Diseases Between Animals and Humans November 12, 2024 Iowa, River Cities' Reader
... The research focuses on chronic wasting disease, a prion disease that affects white-tailed deer, and its potential risks for both animals and humans... investigates how these diseases spread and evolve in large animals like deer, sheep, and cattle and helps identify the differences between strains of prion disease. [the study]
Chronic Wasting Disease, Could Zombie Deer Disease Transfer to Humans? November 5, 2024 Discover Magazine on MSN
... Research has shown that CWD prions can be transmitted to some non-human primates, namely the squirrel monkey. In another study, genetically modified mice that carried human genes also developed CWD. At minimum, this suggests that further research on the topic of CWD is warranted...,
Spatiotemporal Occupancy Patterns of Chronic Wasting Disease 2024 - Kansas, Frontiers in Veterinary Science
...Chronic wasting disease (CWD) among cervids in Kansas has seen a consistent rise over the years, both in terms of the number of infections and its geographical spread. In this study, we assessed the occupancy patterns of CWD among white-tailed deer and mule deer across the state. ... The occupancy pattern produced by this model revealed a steady progression of the disease towards the east and southeast of the state ...
Findings from veterinary research may help to improve deer health, one test at a time October 30, 2024 Missouri, Phys.org on MSN
... In Missouri alone, more than 250 farms are dedicated to raising deer... A recent study led by Mizzou researchers and published in the Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation has found that infections are one of the biggest problems for white-tailed deer on Missouri farms... "When deer are kept in captivity, they often spread pathogens at a higher rate than when they are in the wild," ...
Reinterpreting Chronic Wasting Disease Emergence in the USA in Light of Historical Surveillance Limitations - The Journal of Wildlife Diseases, 2024
... Although most CWD foci in the US were first detected in 2002 or after, the data presented here and elsewhere suggest it is plausible that an unknown number of these—some established perhaps decades earlier—were already present but had simply eluded detection. These data
highlight uncertainty regarding timelines for CWD emergence in the US...
Guest opinion: The ballot box is the worst place to make decisions on mountain lions October 5, 2024 Colorado VailDaily.com, Jerry Apker
... There is truth that mountain lions, like many other predators, may kill sickly or injured deer more frequently than healthy animals. You should be suspicious of the wishful thinking that this means lions will control the spread of chronic wasting disease. These advocate scientists concealed that this idea has been tested in Colorado and Wyoming. Lion predation on deer had no effect on chronic wasting disease spread or prevalence ..,
Unique deer scraping behavior can spread CWD August 22, 2024 The Wildlife Society
... Chronic wasting disease ... One likely indirect CWD transmission pathway in white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) is through their scraping behavior ... To create the scrapes, the ungulates use their front hooves to clear a circular area on the ground of debris and duft, usually next to a tree. Then, they urinate on the area, rub their face on it and lick a low-hanging branch ...
Biodetection of an odor signature in white-tailed deer associated with infection by chronic wasting disease prions 2024 PlosOne
... dogs were trained to detect and discriminate CWD infected individuals from non-infected deer in a laboratory setting. Dogs were tested with novel panels of fecal samples demonstrating the dogs’ ability to generalize a learned odor profile to novel odor samples based on infection status... These results indicated that canine biodetectors can discriminate the specific odors emitted from the feces of non-infected versus CWD infected white-tailed deer as well as generalizing the learned response to other tissues collected from infected individuals. These findings suggest that the health status of wild and farmed cervids can be evaluated non-invasively for CWD ...
Biodetection data: Using odor signature in white-tailed deer associated with infection by Chronic Wasting Disease prions 2024 U.S. Department of Agriculture
... This study involved training canine biodetectors in 2021-2022, to identify populations and/or individuals infected with CWD via detection of feces odors. Dogs were trained to detect and discriminate CWD infected white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) from non-infected white-tailed deer, obtained from targeted removal events conducted throughout the United States and several counties in western Tennessee, in a laboratory setting at the National Wildlife Research Center in Fort Collins, Colorado...
How to control chronic wasting disease June 22, 2024 American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
... if you let CWD fester for any length of time, then culling probably won’t work ... selective breeding might work like the Covid vaccine: It’s still possible to get a breakthrough infection, but it’s had a huge impact on slowing the disease down and minimizing transmission... even if we get an effective vaccine, we’d also need to figure out a good way to distribute it ...
Predicting chronic wasting disease in white-tailed deer at the county scale using machine learning June 22, 2024 Nature
... We predicted CWD incidence by county using CWD surveillance data depicting white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in 16 eastern and midwestern US states ... disagreements in positives and negatives between the CWD Prediction Web App predictions and the on-the-ground surveillance data one year later underscore the need for state wildlife agency professionals to use a layered modeling approach ...
Detection of Chronic Wasting Disease Prions in Prairie Soils from Endemic Regions 2024 Environmental Science & Technology
... In the prairie area of South Saskatchewan where the CWD prevalence rate in male mule deer is greater than 70%, 75% of the soil samples tested were positive, while in the low-prevalence prairie region of North Dakota (11% prevalence in male mule deer), none of the soils contained prion seeding activity...
As 'Zombie' Deer Disease Spreads, Scientists Look for Answers June 6, 2024, Yale E360
... predators and scavengers can spread the disease. “This is one of the most concerning aspects of CWD,” said Larsen. “Many species can be exposed to CWD prions, and we don’t know how those prions will evolve and which mammals those prions will be able to infect.” [Peter Larsen, an associate professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Minnesota] ...
Chronic wasting disease alters the movement behavior and habitat use of mule deer during clinical stages of infection 2024, Ecology and Evolution
... using GPS collar data from two distinct populations collared in central Wyoming, USA during 2018–2022 ... CWD and predation were the leading causes of mortality during our study (32/91 deaths attributed to CWD and 27/91 deaths attributed to predation). Deer infected with CWD moved slower and used lower elevation areas closer to rivers in the months preceding death compared with uninfected deer ...
Classical BSE dismissed as the cause of CWD in Norwegian red deer despite strain similarities between both prion agents 2024 Veterinary Research
... The first case of CWD in a Norwegian red deer ... the red deer glycoprofile was different from the Norwegian CWD reindeer and CWD moose and from North American CWD ... These results suggest that the Norwegian CWD red deer case was infected with a previously unknown CWD type ...
Study suggests chronic wasting disease unlikely to move from animals to people May 17, 2024 Medical Xpress on MSN
... from National Institutes of Health scientists and published in Emerging Infectious Diseases ... suggests there is a substantial species barrier preventing transmission of chronic wasting disease (CWD) from cervids—deer, elk and moose—to people...
North American Wildlife Agency CWD Testing and Ancillary Data (2000 – 2022) 2024 ecommons.cornell.edu
The North American Wildlife Agency CWD Testing and Ancillary Data (2000-2022) dataset (“Dataset”) represents epidemiological, population, ecological, and anthropogenic data related to chronic wasting disease (CWD) surveillance in white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in 16 US states (“Administrative Areas”) in North America...
FWC issues executive order with new CWD regulations for 2024-25 deer season April 17, 2024 Florida Fish and Wildlife News
... the FWC issued a new executive order outlining regulations designed to increase sampling and slow the spread of chronic wasting disease in Florida deer. Existing regulations pertaining to the establishment of the CWD Management Zone, prohibition of rehabilitating or releasing injured or orphaned deer, feeding restrictions, and prohibition of exporting high-risk parts remain in effect...
Two Hunters from the Same Lodge Afflicted with Sporadic CJD: Is Chronic Wasting Disease to Blame? - Neurology, 2024
... In 2022, a 72-year-old man with a history of consuming meat from a CWD-infected deer population presented with rapid-onset confusion and aggression. His friend, who had also eaten venison from the same deer population, recently died of CJD, raising concerns about a potential link between CWD and human prion disease ...
Man believes wife’s death could be related to deer meat December 5, 2021 Louisiana, Alexandria KALB-TV
... An Ouachita Parish woman died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in 2020. It left her husband searching for answers and a year later, he discovered her symptoms were similar to a disease found in deer called Chronic Wasting Disease...
INHS survey studies Illinois hunters' beliefs about controlling disease in deer populations April 3, 2024 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
... The occurrence of CWD cases in deer is expanding, as the disease was found in 10 Illinois counties in 2012 and 19 counties in 2022... hunters’ perceptions of risk of CWD to both deer and humans have dropped slightly over the years. “The disease is no longer news, and people just don’t see the risk anymore,” ...
How to control control chronic wasting disease April 1, 2024, Knowable Magazine
... animals with those good gene variants are significantly less likely to get CWD, but they’re likely not completely immune. We’ve been putting more of the animals with good variants out into the farm and can see that fewer of them seem to be getting infected by the time they’re hunted ...
Whitetail deer research into the home stretch March 1, 2024 West Virginia, WV MetroNews
... “Hunter harvest is the leading source of mortality across all three study areas. We’ve had about 160 mortalities recorded and about 60 of those were hunter harvest. In the central and western study areas hunter harvest has been the highest source mortality, but it’s actually second in Hampshire County behind chronic wasting disease,” ...
Plants can uptake CWD-causing prions from soil in the lab. What happens if they are eaten?
February 22, 2024 Minnesota, University of Minnesota CIDRAP
... published in iScience in December ... They demonstrated that alfalfa, barley, and Arabidopsis thaliana, a small plant from the mustard family called thale cress and other names, all accumulated sufficient prions from contaminated soil in their above-ground tissues to cause mice that ingested the plant tissues to develop prion disease...
Unraveling the Mystery: How Deer Poop Holds the Key to Tackling Chronic Wasting Disease February 21, 2024 Pennsylvania, Vet Candy
... By collecting and analyzing samples from both CWD-positive and -negative deer, scientists have uncovered a crucial link between gut bacteria and the presence of the disease. Anna Kashina, a professor of biochemistry at Penn Vet, underscores the significance of this discovery: "For the first time, we have a noninvasive tool for detecting CWD and gaining insights into its biology." The study, published in Microbiology Spectrum ...
Looking Backwards to Know Where to Go: Leveraging Historical Data to Guide Chronic Wasting Disease Management February, 2024 Wildlife Management Institute
... Guided by the findings of the survey, researchers are currently working with state wildlife agency partners to create an analytical framework that would allow for within and between-state comparisons of the efficacy of various harvest regulations. To date, researchers have collected harvest records and regulations from six states spanning the years 2001- 2022 and are in the process of collecting records from two more...
Understanding chronic wasting disease in deer February 12, 2024 Phys.org on MSN
... The researchers found that several types of gut bacteria could differentiate between CWD-positive and -negative animals. Their paper "Prospective fecal microbiomic biomarkers for chronic wasting disease" was published in Microbiology Spectrum...
Study examines strategies to prevent fatal deer disease re-entering NY January 30, 2024 New York, Olean Times Herald
... Deer hunters were more likely to be swayed by social media messages about the potential risks of chronic wasting disease if they came from a source they believed aligned with their own views and values, according to a new study...
Sporadic cases of chronic wasting disease in old moose–an epidemiological study
- Journal of General Virology, 2024
...The results of our study show that the CWD cases detected so far in Nordic moose have a different epidemiology compared to CWD cases reported from North America and in Norwegian reindeer (Rangifer tarandus tarandus). The results support the hypothesis that these cases are less contagious or not contagious between live animals under field conditions ...
Assessing Different Chronic Wasting Disease Training Aids for Use with Detection Dogs 2024 Animals
... This study examined different materials, incubation times, and incubation temperatures for training aids to identify the aid that both maximizes the dogs’ detection performance and is practical to use. Based on these criteria, the best-performing aid was made of cotton and was incubated with fecal matter from CWD-positive deer for 24 h at 21 °C...
Expanding CWD disease surveillance options using environmental contamination at deer signposts 2024 Ecological Solutions and Evidence
... Using real-time quaking-induced conversion (RT-QuIC), we detected prion seeding activity in 20% of the soil and 41% of the licking branches of the scrape sites within the CWD study area, and in 25% of the soil and 11% of the licking branches of scrape sites sampled at the edge of the known CWD distribution.
5. Our data show there is environmental prion contamination at scrape sites. This supports the idea that scrapes could serve as early warning sentinel sites for CWD surveillance through testing soil and licking branches for prion seeding activity, especially in areas with limited access to harvested deer samples...
Nasal bots carry relevant titers of CWD prions in naturally infected white-tailed deer January 8, 2024 The EMBO Journal
... Considering that cervids are commonly afflicted by nasal bot flies, we tested the potential of these parasites to transmit CWD... These parasites efficiently infect CWD-susceptible mice in ways suggestive of high infectivity titers... We show that both soils and plants exposed to CWD-infected bot homogenates displayed seeding activity ...
With chronic wasting disease deer cases increasing, NC pushes testing December 7, 2023 North Carolina, The Fayetteville Observer
... North Carolina wildlife officials are reminding hunters to be careful when handling deer carcasses and to get harvested animals tested... stresses to hunters the importance of taking precautions when transporting or disposing of deer carcasses." ...
Disease phenotype of classical sheep scrapie is changed upon experimental passage through white-tailed deer - PLoS pathogens, 2023
... The purpose of this study was to test the susceptibility of sheep to challenge with the scrapie agent after passage through white-tailed deer (WTD scrapie)... Multiple lines of evidence suggest a phenotype switch when No. 13–7 scrapie prions are passaged through deer. This represents one example of interspecies transmission of prions resulting in the emergence or selection of new strain properties that could confound disease eradication and control efforts...
MSU scientists study effects of supplemental feeding on chronic wasting disease November 21, 2023 Mississippi State University
... “The relative risk comparison showed that almost three times more deer visited sample areas around feeders than equivalent areas within food plots. The more deer that frequent a small area, the greater the risk for CWD to spread through direct and indirect contact between those deer,” Demarais said. “The conclusion is that deer at feeders are more at risk for catching CWD from other infected deer than at food plots.”...
Plan to EAT that deer you caught? New research suggests CWD could spread to humans more easily than thought November 16, 2023 Idaho, KIVI-TV
... mashed up brain from a CWD [chronic wasting disease] infected deer that was injected directly into the brains of those mice ... the humanized mice eventually -- over years -- became infected with CWD and could spread it through their feces...
Nebraska study found new method to examine spread of COVID in deer November 1, 2023 Omaha.com
... Earlier in the pandemic, researchers had worried that the coronavirus could spread to animals, mutate and spill back into people. That has not, however, proved a big threat, Loy said. Recent work indicates there were introductions of the virus from humans to deer, which was followed by circulation among deer but only a couple of cases in which the virus passed from deer to humans...
MSU researchers pioneer new method to detect Chronic Wasting Disease October 31, 2023 Mississippi State University
... “As bucks chew on overhanging branches and urinate on the scrape, prions—abnormally formed proteins—are released if a deer is CWD positive,” Demarais said. “Camera traps show us that, on average, every scrape is visited by 12 bucks, each of which may or may not have CWD.” ... “We wanted to see if we could use scrapes as a sentinel, an early warning signal that did not require sampling an individual deer,” ..,
U of M Study: Chronic Wasting Disease could spread through deer processing equipment October 24, 2023 Michigan, Northern News Now
... New research from the University of Minnesota finds Chronic Wasting Disease can be spread through equipment touched by contaminated meat. “Knives and cutting boards and meat grinders can be contaminated with prions from venison that is contaminated from CWD,” said Tiffany Wolf, a professor with the University of Minnesota...
Heterogeneity of pathological prion protein accumulation in the brain of moose (Alces alces) from Norway, Sweden and Finland with chronic wasting disease - Veterinary Research, 2023
... In 2016, chronic wasting disease (CWD) gained great importance at European level due to the first disease detection in a wild reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) in Norway. The subsequent intensive CWD surveillance launched in cervids resulted in the detection of CWD in moose (Alces alces), with 11 cases in Norway, 3 in Finland and 4 in Sweden... the different types of PrPSc deposits found among moose demonstrate strong variations between the cases, supporting the postulation that these cases could carry multiple strains of CWD...
... The first case of CWD in Europe was detected in a Norwegian reindeer in 2016, followed later by two CWD cases in Norwegian moose... Our results show that all the methods applied were able to detect the CWD positive samples even if differences in analytical sensitivity were clearly observed. Although this study could not assess the test accuracy, due to the small number of samples available, it is conceivable that the rapid and confirmatory diagnostic systems applied for CWD surveillance in Northern Europe are reliable tools...
A microfluidic biosensor for the diagnosis of chronic wasting disease - Microsystems & Nanoengineering, 2023
... chronic wasting disease (CWD) ... is caused by a misfolded prion protein... the biosensor was 10 times more sensitive than ELISA, which is the currently approved CWD diagnostic test. The biosensor’s specificity and selectivity were confirmed using known negative RPLN samples, a negative control antibody ...
Logging, linear features, and human infrastructure shape the spatial dynamics of wolf predation on an ungulate neonate - Ecological Applications, 2023
... In contrast to the 'human shield hypothesis' that posits prey use human-modified areas as refuge, wolves killed fawns closer to residential buildings than expected based on spatial availability. Fawns were also killed within recently-logged areas more than expected. Concealment cover was higher at kill sites than random sites, suggesting wolves use senses other than vision, likely olfaction, to detect hidden fawns. Wolves showed strong selection for hunting along linear features, and kill sites were also closer to linear features than expected...
Spatiotemporal epizootiology of chronic wasting disease in Wisconsin deer. 2023. Ecosphere, 2023
... . The rate of prevalence increase over time is higher in more forested ecoregions and in males (0.48 vs. 0.43) but similar in females (0.43 vs. 0.37) and yearlings (0.44 vs. 0.39)... prevalence may be affected by deer management practices that favor higher deer abundance and more mature males... The trajectory of CWD dynamics in Wisconsin suggests rapid growth in regional prevalence following introduction and increased spread across the landscape...
'A canary in the coal mine,' Chronic Wasting Disease prions found in Claiborne County June 22, 2023 Mississippi, The Natchez Democrat
... detection of CWD prions in a scrape located in Claiborne County on the Mississippi side of the river which was reported to Walsh this Tuesday. The finding comes from a Mississippi State University study on surveying for CWD in non-invasive ways...
New research shows that swallowed ticks could spread chronic wasting disease in wild deer June 22, 2023 Minnesota, Star Tribune
... University scientists from Wisconsin and Minnesota discovered single deer ticks (a.k.a. blacklegged ticks) in the wild, taken off the heads of CWD-infected deer, with enough disease-causing prions inside of them to spread the disease. Hypothetically, a healthy deer could accidentally swallow one of those tainted ticks during social grooming ...
Ticks found to harbor and release prions of chronic wasting disease May 17, 2023, News Medical
... Overall, the study findings showed that infection-relevant loads of seeding substances are present in individual tick... a recent study published in the Scientific Reports Journal, researchers combined experimental tick feeding with tick evaluations from wild white-tailed deer to determine whether ticks may contain transmission-relevant amounts of chronic wasting disease associated prions ...
Ticks harbor and excrete chronic wasting disease prions - Scientific Reports, 2023
... Estimates revealed a median infectious dose range of 0.3–42.4 per tick, suggesting that ticks can take up transmission-relevant amounts of PrPCWD and may pose a CWD risk to cervids...
U of M researchers develop technique for rapid detection of neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s and CWD May 1, 2023 Minnesota, University of Minnesota
... The method will likely open a door for earlier treatment and mitigation of various diseases that affect humans, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, and similar diseases that affect animals, such as chronic wasting disease (CWD). Their new study is published in Nano Letters...
Monitoring of chronic wasting disease (CWD) - EFSA Journal, April, 2023
... The European Commission requested an analysis of the Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) monitoring programme in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (9 January 2017–28 February 2022). Thirteen cases were detected in reindeer, 15 in moose and 3 in red deer. They showed two phenotypes, distinguished by the presence or absence of detectable disease‐associated normal cellular prion protein (PrP) in lymphoreticular tissues. CWD was detected for the first time in Finland, Sweden and in other areas of Norway...
Tonsil biopsy to detect chronic wasting disease in white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) by immunohistochemistry - PloS one, 2023
... The sensitivity of two-bite tonsil biopsy for detecting CWD by IHC was 72% overall. When the stage of infection was considered, the sensitivity was 92% for deer in late preclinical infection but only 55% for early preclinical infection...
About 600 wild deer to get GPS collars in southcentral Pennsylvania February 15, 2023 Erie Times-News
... part of a research project involving Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) ... “It will give us insight into the effects of CWD on Pennsylvania’s deer population.” ...
Canine detection of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in laboratory and field settings - Prion, 2023
... Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a fatal transmissible spongiform encephalopathy that affects both freeranging and farmed cervid species, including mule deer, white-tailed deer, and elk ... We then trained the same dogs to search for CWD-positive faecal samples in a more naturalistic field setting. In the field, dogs found 8/11 CWD-positive samples and had an average false detection rate of 13%. These results suggest that dogs can be trained to differentiate CWD-positive faeces from CWD-negative faeces in both laboratory and field settings...
Longitudinal detection of prion shedding in nasal secretions of CWD-infected white-tailed deer - Journal of General Virology, 2023
... Rapid detection of CWD prions shed by live animals using minimally invasive methods remains an important need ... The results of this study demonstrate nasal shedding of CWD prions that can be detected using minimally invasive nasal swab sampling and RT-QuIC analysis...
State wildlife agencies share how much they spend on CWD January 13, 2023 Outdoor News
... state wildlife agencies in 16 CWD-positive states spent $773,000 annually on disease management... A new peer-reviewed report published in the November/December 2022 issue of The Wildlife Professional starts to quantify these costs ...
Effect of legal regulation of supplemental feeding on space use of red deer in an area with chronic wasting disease 2023 Norway, European Journal of Wildlife
... The ban on supplementary feeding had no effect on size of core areas or home ranges. Several potential factors can explain the overall weak effect of the ban on space use, including the use of agricultural fields by red deer, other anthropogenic feeding, and landscape topography. This study highlights that snow depth is the main factor determining space use during winter ...
Monitoring CWD Gets Easier with Introduction of New Tool November 17, 2022 Tennessee, TN.gov
... The Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance (CWDA) recently developed three online, CWD information mapping tools to help document, track, and manage the spread of CWD: CWD in North America shows counties and wildlife management units in which CWD has been found in wild and/or captive cervid populations. CWD-Related Hunting Regulations shows CWD-related hunting regulations, maps of CWD-positive areas, and the CWD regulatory status of each state and province. Carcass Transport Regulations will help users discover regulations impacting the transport of cervid carcasses from one state/province to another. It includes import, export, and pass-through regulations for cervid carcasses for every state and province...
Diagnostic testing of chronic wasting disease in white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) by RT-QuIC using multiple tissues - PLOS ONE, 2022
... , we analyzed the presence of CWD prions in skin samples from two easily accessed locations (ear and belly) from 30 deceased white-tailed deer ... The diagnostic sensitivity of the ear and belly skin samples were both 95%, and the diagnostic specificity of the ear and belly skin were both 100%. Additionally, the location of the skin biopsy on the ear does not affect specificity or sensitivity. These results demonstrate the efficacy of CWD diagnosis with skin biopsies using RT-QuIC...
White-Tailed Deer are Susceptible to the Agent of Classical Sheep Scrapie after Experimental Oronasal Exposure 2022 The Journal of Infectious Diseases
... Classical scrapie is a prion disease of sheep and goats ... We inoculated WTD (n = 5) ...with the classical scrapie agent from goats (n = 6)... All deer exposed to the agent of classical scrapie from sheep accumulated PrPSc. PrPSc was detected in lymphoid tissues at preclinical time points, and deer necropsied after 28 months post-inoculation had clinical signs, spongiform lesions, and widespread PrPSc in neural and lymphoid tissues...
Chronic Wasting Disease, Efficacy of secondary electric fences at preventing direct contact among white‐tailed deer - Wildlife Society Bulletin, 2022
... The majority of breaches occurred across the three‐strand‐fence. Our results suggest that no style of primary fence alone is sufficient to prevent direct contacts and that the addition of a secondary,
properly designed electric fence constructed along the primary fence of captive white‐tailed deer facilities could prevent direct contact between captive and free‐ranging deer...
Learning How Chronic Wasting Disease is Affecting Deer in Wisconsin April 29, 2022 Southwest Wisconsin CWD, Deer and Predator Study
... staff evaluated 433 deer mortalities, and 141 deer were sent to the lab for a full necropsy ... Of all deer necropsied, 42% were CWD-positive ... those with end-stage CWD infections. “You could see their bones jut out, especially around the ribs and hip. They lost muscle too ..,
Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in Cervids and the Consequences of a Mutable Protein Conformation
CJ Silva - ACS Omega, 2022
... The CWD prions can respond to selection pressures resulting in the emergence of new strain phenotypes. Annually, 11.5 million Americans hunt and harvest nearly 6 million deer, indicating that CWD is a potential threat to an important American food source. No tested CWD strain has been shown to be zoonotic. However, this may not be true for emerging strains ...
SARS-CoV-2 has not emerged in roe, red or fallow deer in Germany or Austria during the COVID 19 pandemic 2022. bioRxiv
... Spillover of SARS-CoV-2 to North American white tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) has been documented. We evaluated pre and pandemic exposure of German and Austrian deer species using a SARS-CoV-2 pseudoneutralization assay. In stark contrast to North American white tailed deer, we found no evidence of SARS-CoV-2 exposure...
Apparent stability masks underlying change in a mule deer herd with unmanaged chronic wasting disease January, 2022 Communications Biology
... High apparent prevalence (~30%) since at least 2005 ... Despite stable appearances, prion disease nonetheless impairs adult survival and likely resilience in this deer herd, limiting its potential for growth despite refuge from hunter harvest and favorable habitat and winter conditions...
Supporting adaptive management with ecological forecasting: chronic wasting disease in the Jackson Elk Herd 2021 Ecosphere
... . Initial forecasts suggested CWD may reach a mean prevalence in the population of 12%, but uncertainty in this forecast is large and we cannot rule out a mean forecasted prevalence as high as 20%. Using recruitment rates observed during the last two
decades, the model predicted that a CWD prevalence of 7% in females would cause the population growth rate (λ) to drop below 1, resulting in population declines even when female harvest was zero...
Spatio-temporal changes in chronic wasting disease risk in wild deer during 14 years of surveillance in Alberta, Canada 2021 Preventive Veterinary
... We found no evidence that the 3-year herd reduction program conducted immediately after CWD was first detected affected the rate at which CWD grew over the course of the invasion. Risk of deer being CWD-positive was the highest in animals taken near small stream drainages and on soils with low organic carbon content in the early period, whereas risk became highest in areas of agriculture especially when far from large river drainages where deer often concentrate in isolated woody patches.... Our results indicate that a targeted-removal program will remove more CWD positive animals compared to hunter harvest...
Generation of human chronic wasting disease in transgenic mice September 26, 2021 Acta Neuropathologica Communications
... Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is the most contagious of all prion diseases ... Our study, using PMCA and animal bioassays, provides the first evidence that CWD PrPSc can cross the species barrier to convert human PrPC into infectious PrPSc that can produce bona fide prion disease when inoculated into humanized transgenic mice...
Selective Breeding for Disease Resistant PRNP Variants to Manage Chronic Wasting Disease in Farmed Whitetail Deer N Haley, R Donner, K Merrett, M Miller, K Senior - 2021
... We developed a selective breeding program for farmed white-tailed deer in a high prevalence CWD-endemic area which focused on reducing frequencies
of highly susceptible PRNP variants and introducing animals with less-susceptible variants. With the use of newly developed primers, we found that breeding followed predictable Mendelian inheritance, and early data support our project’s utility in reducing CWD prevalence. This project represents a novel approach to CWD management, with future efforts building on these findings...
University Of Wyoming Researchers Find CWD Changes Mule Deer Genetics August 31, 2021 Wyoming Public Media
... new research ... researchers found a link between areas where CWD has been in mule deer herds the longest and how common a genetic mutation which slows down disease progression, known as the 225F allele ...
UW Researchers Lead Study of Chronic Wasting Disease in Mule Deer August 11, 2021 Wyoming, University of Wyoming
... investigate the relationship between chronic wasting disease and a mutation at codon 225 of the mule deer prion protein gene that slows disease progression,” Ernest explains. “We found that individuals with the ‘slow’ 225F allele were less likely to test positive for chronic wasting disease, and the 225F allele was more common in herds exposed to chronic wasting disease longer. We also found that, in the past two decades, the 225F allele frequency increased more in herds with higher chronic wasting disease prevalence.”... [Read the research]
North American and Norwegian Chronic Wasting Disease prions exhibit different potential for interspecies transmission and zoonotic risk. 2021 - The Journal of Infectious Disease
... By comparing the conversion efficiency of CWD in a second PMCA round, we observed that CWD prions from North American cervids were able to successfully convert human PrPC. The best results were obtained with white-tailed deer, mule deer and to a lower extent with elk ...
Democrats call for Board of Animal Health president to resign over CWD June 30, 2021 Minnesota, Bring Me The News
... Several Democrats in the Minnesota House of Representatives are calling for the president of the Minnesota Board of Animal Health to resign over his handling of chronic wasting disease... first discovered in a farmed deer in Minnesota in 2002 and a wild animal in 2010 ...
Second passage of chronic wasting disease of mule deer to sheep by intracranial inoculation compared to classical scrapie. May, 2021. Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation
... chronic wasting disease (CWD) ... We compared the disease phenotype of sheep-adapted CWD to classical scrapie in sheep. We inoculated sheep intracranially with brain homogenate from first-passage mule deer CWD in sheep ... Our data suggest that the phenotype of CWD in sheep is indistinguishable from some strains of scrapie in sheep ...
Research team finds additional CWD prions at dump site of Beltrami County deer farm May 20, 2021 Minnesota, Duluth News Tribune
... University of Minnesota researchers using forensic science techniques has documented the presence of prions that cause chronic wasting disease at a remote Beltrami County site where a nearby deer farm discarded white-tailed deer carcasses ...
Detection of chronic wasting disease in mule and white-tailed deer by RT-QuIC analysis of outer ear - Scientific Reports, 2021
... we have tested a more easily accessed specimen, ear pinna punches, using an improved RT-QuIC assay involving iron oxide magnetic extraction to detect CWD infections in asymptomatic mule and white-tailed deer... These results provide evidence that RT-QuIC analysis of ear pinna punches may be a useful approach to detecting CWD infections in cervids...
Hunting Pressure Modulates Prion Infection Risk in Mule Deer Herds, 2020 Colorado, Journal of Wildlife Diseases In-Press.
... Across 12 areas in Colorado studied between 2002−2018, those with the largest declines in annual hunting license numbers (pressure) showed the largest increases in the proportion of infected adult (≥2–yr-old) male deer killed by hunters (prevalence); prevalence trends were comparatively flat in most areas where license numbers had been maintained or increased... Our findings suggest that harvesting mule deer with sufficient hunting pressure might control chronic wasting disease—especially when prevalence is low ..,
Very low oral exposure to prions of brain or saliva origin can transmit chronic wasting disease ND Denkers, CE Hoover, KA Davenport… - PloS one, 2020
... We orally inoculated white-tailed deer with either single or multiple divided doses of prions ...These studies suggest that the CWD minimum infectious dose approximates 100 to 300 ng CWD-positive brain (or saliva equivalent), and that CWD infection appears to conform more with a threshold than a cumulative dose dynamic...
Large‐scale prion protein genotyping in Canadian caribou populations and potential impact on chronic wasting disease susceptibility August 2020, MI Arifin, A Staskevicius, SY Shim, YH Huang… - Molecular Ecology
... Reindeer carrying at least one allele encoding for asparagine (138NN or 138SN) are less susceptible to clinical CWD upon infection by natural routes, with the majority of prions limited to extraneural tissues...
Texas A&M Researchers Developing First Oral Anthrax Vaccine For Livestock, Wildlife August 11, 2020 Texas A&M University
... recently published the results of a pilot study in Nature ... If successful, they will have developed the first effective oral vaccine against anthrax for wildlife. “The preliminary results showed that this concept has potential, so now we are starting up a deer study ...
An empirical analysis of hunter response to chronic wasting disease in Alberta
JK Pattison-Williams, L Xie, WL Adamowicz, M Pybus… - Human Dimensions of …, 2020
... Results indicated that hunters are continuing to apply to hunt mule deer in areas with CWD and this relationship is not statistically impacted by the increasing prevalence of CWD. This outcome may be because CWD prevalence in Alberta is relatively low (but increasing), which is consistent with the literature indicating that few hunters avoid CWD zones until prevalence increases dramatically...
The Search for Genetic Clues to Determine Chronic Wasting Disease Susceptibility June 18, 2020 USDA.gov
... In March 2020, Texas A&M published a paper ... was able to identify highly susceptible animals with a greater than 80 percent accuracy rate by analyzing DNA samples from 807 farmed white-tailed deer taken from across the United States between 2014 and 2018...
Novel Approaches to Fight Prion Diseases S Thapa - 2020
... After challenging the animals with CWD prions intraperitoneally, we found that all vaccinated groups had longer survival times than the CpG control group. Interestingly, the Mmo-immunized group revealed that survival was extended by 60%. We also observed 28.4% and 24.1% prolongation in Dmo and Ddi groups, respectively. Our preliminary study in reindeer showed substantial humoral immune response induced by Mdi and Ddi, and the sera from the Ddi-vaccinated reindeer significantly reduced CWD prions in a cell culture model. Taken together, this study describes potential vaccine candidates against CWD...
New breakthrough may help cure prion disease May 6, 2020 Massachusetts, News Medical
... fatal diseases caused by prions - chronic wasting disease in deer ... if you catch it early enough, if you pull out one side of the square, the amyloid structure can't double. Chaperones prevent the disease by preventing it from doubling in that first round... In a new paper in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology by Tricia Serio ...
Accurate Genomic Predictions for Chronic Wasting Disease in US White-Tailed Deer CM Seabury, DL Oldeschulte, EK Bhattarai, D Legare… - G3: Genes, Genomes …, 2020
... we demonstrate that both differential susceptibility to CWD, and natural variation in disease progression, are moderately to highly heritable (h2 = 0.337 ± 0.079-0.637 ± 0.070) among farmed U.S. white-tailed deer, and that loci other than PRNP are involved. Genome-wide association analyses using 123,987 quality filtered SNPs for a geographically diverse cohort of 807 farmed U.S. white-tailed deer (n = 284 CWD positive; n = 523 CWD non-detect) confirmed the prion gene (PRNP; G96S) as a large-effect risk locus ...
A Genetic Predisposition to Chronic Wasting Disease in the Reindeer Rangifer tarandus in the Northern European Part of Russia MV Kholodova, AI Baranova, IA Mizin, DV Panchenko… - Biology Bulletin, 2019
... It has been noted that due to the predominance of PrP genotypes with serine in codon 138 (138SS), which are associated with increased susceptibility to CWD, and the detection of this disease in reindeer, moose, and red deer in Scandinavia, there exists a real danger that CWD will spread among the reindeer inhabiting the European part of Russia...
In Vitro detection of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) prions in semen and reproductive tissues of white tailed deer bucks (Odocoileus virginianus). C Kramm, R Gomez-Gutierrez, C Soto, G Telling… - PloS one, 2019
... we described the detection of CWD prions in semen and sexual tissues of WTD [white-tailed deer] bucks ... Our findings reveal the presence of CWD prions in semen and sexual tissues of prion infected WTD bucks. Future studies will be necessary to determine whether sexual contact and/or artificial inseminations are plausible means of CWD transmission in susceptible animal species...
A Crash Course on Chronic Wasting Disease C Anderson, Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy University of Minnesota November, 2019 PowerPoint [PDF]
Can genetic assignment tests provide insight on the influence of captive egression on the epizootiology of chronic wasting disease WL Miller, WD Walter - Evolutionary Applications, November, 2019
...Ancestry and assignment scores for two free-ranging deer with chronic wasting disease sampled in an area where chronic wasting disease was previously unobserved in free-ranging herds indicated a higher likelihood of assignment and proportion of ancestry attributable to captive populations. While we cannot directly assign these individuals to infected facilities, these findings suggest that rare egression events may influence the epizootiology of chronic wasting disease in free-ranging populations...
The demographic pattern of infection with chronic wasting disease in reindeer at an early epidemic stage A Mysterud, K Madslien, H Viljugrein, T Vikøren… - Ecosphere, 2019 Norway
... We found a strong sex-biased infection pattern in reindeer (with infection 2.7 times more likely in adult males), which is similar to the results reported in mule deer and white-tailed
deer. The hazard of being detected as positive increased with age in males. There was no close genetic relatedness among positive animals. The results were consistent with the within-group contact of males being a possible major route of transmission...
Differential gene expression in chronic wasting disease‐positive white‐tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) EK Trone‐Launer, J Wang, G Lu, NE Mateus‐Pinilla… - Ecology and Evolution, 2019 [PDF]
... We identified several genes that suggest a link between CWD and retroviruses and identified the gene ADIPOQ that acts as a tumor necrosis factor (TNF) antagonist. This gene may lead to reduced production of TNF and impact disease progression and
clinical symptoms associated with CWD (i.e., wasting syndrome). Use of candidate genes identified in this study suggests the activation of endogenous processes in CWD‐positive deer, which in turn may enable earlier detection of the disease...
Deer movement studies provide insight into CWD spread, management October 25, 2019 Michigan, UpperMichigansSource.com
... “We’ve had some deer go 18 miles there and back within a nine-day period, with pretty much every (sex and age) demographic of the population making these excursions,” Trudeau said... deer may be exposed to chronic wasting disease during these short trips by encountering infected deer or contaminated environments. CWD-positive deer also may make these excursions and expose other deer to the disease…
Detection of CWD in cervids by RT-QuIC assay of third eyelids 2019 US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health
... We compared CWD detection by RT-QuIC and IHC in third eyelid, retropharyngeal lymph node, and brain in 10 deer in early symptomatic stage of disease. IHC detected PrPCWD deposition in third eyelid lymphoid follicles in 5 of 10 deer (50%) whereas third eyelids of all 10 animals were positive by RT-QuIC. This difference reflected in part a lower requirement for lymphoid follicle presence for seeding activity detection by RT-QuIC. In conclusion, RT-QuIC analysis of the third eyelid, an easily accessed tissue, has potential to advance CWD detection and testing compliance...
Chronic Wasting Disease in Cervids: Implications for Prion Transmission to Humans and Other Animal Species August, 2019 American Society for Microbiology
... CWD has been confirmed in at least 26 U.S. states, three Canadian provinces, South Korea, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, with a notable increase in the past 5 years. The continued geographic spread of this disease increases the frequency of exposure to CWD prions among cervids, humans, and other animal species...
A Surveillance and Response Plan for Chronic Wasting Disease in British Columbia C Nelson, HM Schwantje - 2019
... (the Plan) provides a framework for the CWD technical and working groups... The objectives of the Plan are to: 1) assess the risk of CWD for
B.C.; 2) guide the provincial CWD technical and regional working groups; 3) provide management guidelines to prevent disease entry and to ensure early detection; 4) provide recommendations for ongoing education ...
MM Hille, JE Jewell, EL Belden - Journal of Veterinary Medical Science, 2019
... While CWD [chronic wasting disease] is a neurodegenerative disease, lymphoid accumulation of the abnormal isoform of the prion protein (PrPSc) is detectable early in the course of infection. It has been shown that a large portion of the PrPSc lymphoid accumulation in infected mule deer takes place on the surface of follicular dendritic cells (FDCs). In mice, FDC expression of PrPC has been shown to be essential for PrPSc accumulation...
J Bian, JR Christiansen, JA Moreno, SJ Kane… - Proceedings of the Nationl Academy of Science, 2019
... Because prion strain properties largely dictate host-range potential, our findings suggest that prion strains from elk and deer pose distinct risks to sympatric species or humans exposed to CWD. GtE226 and GtQ226 mice were also highly susceptible to CWD prions ...
Impacts of chronic wasting disease on a low density mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) population in the San Andres Mountains, Chihuahuan Desert, New Mexico LC Bender, CL Rodden, P Mathis, ME Weisenberger… - ACTA ZOOLÓGICA …, 2019
... . Distribution of infected deer was strongly related to presence of other infected deer. Annual survival rates of mule deer and population rate-of-increase suggested little effect of CWD on population-level mortality given observed prevalence. Transmission and reservoirs of CWD in the SAM were likely limited by low deer densities, patchy distribution, and environmental characteristics (i.e., low clay content of soils) unfavorable to prion persistence, characteristics that are typical of most mule deer populations in the Chihuahuan Desert ecoregion...
First Detection of Chronic Wasting Disease in a Wild Red Deer (Cervus elaphus) in Europe T Vikøren, J Våge, KI Madslien, KH Røed… - Journal of Wildlife Diseases, 2019
... Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a fatal contagious prion disease naturally occurring in cervids in North America. In 2016, CWD was detected in wild reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) and moose (Alces alces) in Norway. Here, we report the first known naturally infected wild Norwegian red deer (Cervus elaphus)...
Chronic Wasting Disease, An acid found in soil may make a disease killing deer less infectious November 30, 2018 Science News
... When concentrations of humic acid similar to those found in soils were applied to diseased elk brain tissue, chemical signatures of the infectious prions were nearly erased, researchers report online November 29 in PLOS Pathogens...
Novel Type of Chronic Wasting Disease Detected in Moose (Alces alces), Norway 2018 [PDF] L Pirisinu, L Tran, B Chiappini, I Vanni, MA Di Bari…
... Immunohistochemistry revealed that the moose shared the same neuropathologic phenotype, characterized by mostly intraneuronal deposition of PrPSc. This pattern differed from that observed in reindeer and has not been previously reported in CWD-infected cervids. Moreover, Western blot revealed a PrPSc type distinguishable from previous CWD cases and from known ruminant prion diseases in Europe, with the possible exception of sheep CH1641. These findings suggest that these cases in moose represent a novel type of CWD...
Chronic wasting disease detection and mortality sources in semi-protected deer population
KL Schuler, JA Jenks, RW Klaver, CS Jennelle… - Wildlife Biology, 2018
... data best supported a model with time-invariant encounter probability and an annual survival of 72.8%. Even without direct pressure from hunting within the park, average life expectancy in this population was 3.2 years. Only 68% of mortalities contained sufficient material for CWD sampling (because of predation and scavenger activity) and >42% of these were CWD-positive. These findings underscore the possible biases in postmortem surveillance estimates of disease prevalence because of potential for subclinical infected animals to be removed by predators and not tested.
Microsatellites indicate minimal barriers to mule deer dispersal across Montana August, 2018 Montana, Wildlife Biology
... To better understand the future spread of chronic wasting disease, we conducted a genetic assessment of mule deer Odocoileus hemionus population structure across the state of Montana, USA... We tested for potential homogenizing effects of past translocations within Montana,
but were unable to detect a genetic signature of these events. Our results indicate high levels of connectivity among mule deer populations in Montana and suggest few, if any, detectable barriers to mule deer gene flow or chronic wasting disease transmission...
Study says feeding elk could hurt economy July 26, 2018 Wyoming, Casper Star-Tribune Online
... economics PhD Matthew Maloney, determined that wintertime feeding with chronic wasting disease on the landscape is only an economic winner if elk numbers are held extremely low, or the fatal malady’s spread is slower than observed elsewhere in the wild...
News
Chronic wasting disease confirmed in deer for first time near Scofield, new areas of Uintah County March 4, 2026 Utah Division of Wildlife Resources - Utah.gov
... Chronic wasting disease was first detected in Utah’s mule deer in 2002, in northeastern Utah, and the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources recently confirmed it has now spread to deer in the Scofield area of Carbon County, as well as new areas of Uintah County... As of Feb. 23, a total of 435 mule deer and 11 elk have tested positive for CWD ...
DNR Releases Summary Of 2025 CWD Sampling Efforts March 4, 2026 Wisconsin DNR
... In total, 17,759 deer were sampled throughout the state during the 2025 hunting seasons with 2,006 samples testing positive. Most (87%) of these detections were in the Southern Farmland Zone...
North Dakota 2025 CWD Test Results February 26, 2026 North Dakota Game and Fish
The North Dakota Game and Fish Department tested 1,224 animals for chronic wasting disease during the 2025 sampling season. Game and Fish confirmed 16 deer tested positive for CWD, all of which were taken by hunters... CWD was not previously detected in units 2B and 3D2...
CWD is spreading in Montana. Will deer and elk populations decline as a result? February 25, 2025 MontanaFreePress.org
... “We now know that chronic wasting disease is found in 33% of hunt districts in Montana ... our highest three-year prevalence was 39% in white-tailed deer and 23% in mule deer,” FWP wildlife biologist Bevin McCormick told lawmakers... CWD is believed to have originated in the 1960s or 1970s from a U.S. Department of Agriculture facility in northern Colorado where scientists were researching a related disease called Scrapie that infects sheep and goats ...
Mule deer lethally removed from captive elk facility will be donated to local food banks February 12, 2026 Idaho Fish and Game
... Over the past few months, Idaho Fish and Game has removed 82 wild mule deer from inside a high-fenced captive elk facility... During the 2025 hunting season, hunters on adjacent lands reported seeing numerous wild mule deer inside the facility. It appears these animals gained access to the facility through gaps under the fence. While this facility has not had any captive elk test positive for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), it is subject to Idaho State Department of Agriculture’s (ISDA) 100% CWD testing requirement. Other captive elk facilities in Jefferson, Bingham, and Madison Counties have had multiple captive elk test positive for the disease during the past 18 months ...
Another CWD-infected Mule Deer Found in Cimarron County February 6, 2026 Oklahoma, ODWC
... A hunter-harvested mule deer from Cimarron County in Oklahoma’s Panhandle has tested positive for chronic wasting disease (CWD ... harvested about 3.5 miles west of Felt, near the location where a CWD-positive deer was confirmed last year..,
CWD setting deadly records in Wisconsin February 4, 2026 Janesville Gazette
... The Department of Natural Resources found a record 2,022 CWD cases in a record 41 counties for a record detection rate of 11.2%, up from 10.3% in 2024 and 7.7% in 2021. The DNR learned all that by testing 18,046 hunter-killed deer ... for Wisconsin’s top 12 CWD counties, where the combined CWD infection rate rose from 22% in 2024 to 23.6% in 2025..,
Chronic wasting disease reaches endemic threshold in part of southeastern Minnesota January 28, 2026 West Central Tribune
... Testing during the 2025 season shows prevalence of the disease reaching more than 5% in three southeast deer permit areas ... Minnesota received 121 positive results from nearly 14,000 samples analyzed from across the state during the 2025 deer seasons, a 26% increase in positives from the previous year ...
Chronic wasting disease on the rise in Minnesota, but still a 'rare event' January 18, 2026 MPR News
... just over 14,000 chronic wasting disease samples collected from deer this hunting season ... confirmed cases of the disease are up nearly 26 percent. During the 2024-2025 hunting season, 96 deer tested positive for the always-fatal disease... “We have right around 120 positives so far in the state,” ..,
State's deer harvest drops this season January 13, 2026 Tennessee, Main Street Media of Tennessee
... This past season’s deer harvest declined about 9,000 from the previous season, with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency reporting 151,490 deer checked in. That’s down from approximately 160,000 deer killed in the 2024-25 season...
Chronic wasting disease detected in mule deer east of Great Falls January 10, 2026 NBC Montana
... detected for the first time east of Stanford in Hunting District 419. A mule deer buck, taken by a hunter ...
Chronic Wasting Disease identified in four new hunting districts, FWP says January 9, 2026 Montana, News From The States
... The department announced since July, there were 433 positive Chronic Wasting Disease tests out of 8,574 tests to date, an increase from last year, though FWP said it was too early to make any authoritative call on potential new trends... Four new hunting districts across the state recorded a detection of Chronic Wasting Disease since July 2025 ...
New case of chronic wasting disease confirmed in B.C. deer January 9, 2026 British Columbia, Yahoo News Canada on MSN
... A deer that was hunted in B.C.'s Kootenay region has tested positive for chronic wasting disease, bringing the total number of cases reported in the province up to nine... a white-tailed deer that was hunted near Jaffray, B.C ...
Kentucky officials confirm ‘unexpected’ case of ‘zombie-like’ disease among wild deer population January 8, 2025 Yahoo
... a new case of chronic wasting disease (CWD) had been documented in a wild deer in Ballard County. The case marks the second confirmed CWD diagnosis in the county and the third in the Commonwealth’s wild deer population ...
Suspected case of chronic wasting disease in Ferry County mule deer found 'inconclusive' by WDFW January 7, 2026 Washginton, KREM
... the department received reports from a private testing company regarding a positive CWD test ... additional testing done by the department found that the positive case found in the deer was 'inconclusive.' ...
Special, rare deer hunt being held in Cranbrook to reduce chronic wasting disease January 2, 2026 British Columbia, Global News on MSN
... there have been six confirmed cases of chronic wasting disease in B.C. after it was first detected in the Kootenay region in 2024... Cranbrook has become the centre of the disease cases, according to the B.C. government, which puts surrounding deer and elk populations at risk...
Chronic wasting disease found in Idaho Unit 15 south of Grangeville December 30, 2025 Idaho Fish and Game
A white-tailed buck harvested in Unit 15 south of Grangeville has tested positive for chronic wasting disease. It is the first detection in this hunting unit, but near CWD detections in Unit 14. The location where the animal was killed is about 20 miles from Slate Creek where CWD was first detected in 2021 ...
Is killing more deer the solution to controlling CWD? December 27, 2025 Illinois, e-know.ca
... Traditionally, CWD strategies have focused on reducing deer densities to limit contact and transmission. While effective, this approach ignores the underlying genetic makeup of populations. If nearly half of deer in a region carry protective variants, indiscriminate culling could inadvertently remove individuals with the very traits that offer hope for long-term resilience...Dr. Alfred Roca, professor in the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Illinois, has spent years studying genetic variation in wildlife ...
Idaho’s domestic elk farms drawing criticism December 27. 2025 Idaho, Moscow-Pullman Daily News
... Over the past 12 months, chronic wasting disease has been detected three times at elk farms in the state’s southeastern corner, ramping up concern that the movement of animals across fences could serve as a pathway for the fatal and persistent disease to be transferred to wild herds there..,
Tennessee wildlife officials detect chronic wasting disease in two more counties December 23, 2025 WATE
... TWRA said hunter-harvested deer in both Dickson and Williamson counties tested positive for CWD, the first for both counties...
Province Advises of Five New Chronic Wasting Disease Cases December 22, 2025 Manitoba | News Release
... five new cases of chronic wasting disease (CWD), including cases in two areas with no prior positive detections: the Rural Municipalities of Swan Valley West and Victoria, in Game Hunting Areas (GHA) 13A and 30. Additionally, three new CWD cases have been confirmed in southern Manitoba..,
DNR Confirms CWD In Wild Deer In La Crosse County December 22, 2025 Wisconsin DNR - Wisconsin.gov
... The deer was a hunter-harvested adult buck and was harvested within 10 miles of both the Monroe and Vernon County borders... La Crosse County was under a 2-year baiting and feeding ban prior to this detection. That ban will be extended for another three years ...
FWP highlights successful 2025 chronic wasting disease monitoring season December 19, 2025 Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks
Total Samples: For the 2025 season (July to present), FWP has processed 8,372 samples statewide.
Record Participation: The fourth week of the season (Nov. 13–19) saw 1,741 samples collected, the highest sampling week ever recorded for that period.
Positive Detections: To date, 428 samples have returned positive or suspect results across the state. Of those, 247 were white-tailed deer, 178 were mule deer, and three were elk...
Deer tested positive for chronic wasting disease found in Grant, Sevier counties December 19, 2025 Arkansas, KARK Little Rock on MSN
... three white-tailed deer from Grant and Sevier counties have tested positive for chronic wasting disease... A 2½-year-old buck was taken southwest of Sheridan and a 3½-year-old buck was killed by a hunter near Grapevine. A 4½-year-old buck was taken on the north side of De Queen Lake..,
2 new cases of chronic wasting disease in BC lead to more hunting permits December 18, 2025 British Columbia, CBC.ca on MSN.com
... It comes after two new cases of chronic wasting disease were identified in deer from the Kootenay region, with a total of eight cases now confirmed in the province... the special hunt will increase test samples and bolster monitoring data for chronic wasting disease...
‘Zombie deer disease’ detected in another Middle Tennessee county December 18, 2025 WSMV on MSN
... Wayne County has reported its first positive test result for the illness, known as chronic wasting disease (CWD). It was detected in a road-killed deer... Since the state started surveying for cases of CWD in 2002, the disease has been detected in wild white-tailed deer in 20 counties ...
2 new cases of ‘zombie deer disease’ found in B.C.’s Kootenay area December 17, 2025 British Columbia, Global News on MSN
... Two deer hunted in British Columbia's Kootenay region has tested positive for chronic wasting disease ... Both of cases were detected within B.C.’s existing disease management zone ...
CWD, Big changes headed for Missouri deer hunting, driven by spread of 100% fatal disease December 15, 2025 Missouri, KSDK
... chronic wasting disease ... Just six Missouri counties were considered at risk in 2012, and conservationists now estimate that 82 counties are at risk... a CWD Management Zone and had to follow specific regulations ... Because over half the state is now considered at risk of the disease, the elimination of the specific management zones will allow the department to list specific counties for mandatory disease testing before hunting seasons...
MDC announces changes to deer-hunting regulations
December 12, 2025 Missouri Department of Conservation
... The five-day CWD Portion of firearms deer season was open for CWD Management Zone counties. Harvest data shows that this season portion has not resulted in a significant increase in harvest. Hunters have also expressed concerns about the number of firearms-deer-season portions and the complexity of regulations. Removing the CWD Portion will simplify the structure of deer season for hunters and not significantly affect deer harvest...
Elk on the loose: Chronic wasting disease continues to spread in Damascus December 8, 2025 Pennsylvania, The River Reporter
... “Padua said we don’t know the Elk has CWD but there was an animal it was in captivity with that tested positive for CWD,” read the minutes. Elk are not native to this area but have been imported by captive animal facilities for the purpose of hunting. There have been reports of animals escaping from these facilities. The Damascus Township website mentions that the irresponsible import and management of so-called exotic animals has been linked to CWD..,
CWD detected in a new Wyoming hunt area December 8, 2025 Wyoming Game and Fish Department
... confirmed the presence of chronic wasting disease for the first time in Elk Hunt Area 2 in the Sheridan Region ... in a bull elk that was euthanized due to suspected disease. Elk Hunt Area 2 is surrounded by CWD-positive Elk Hunt Area 129, which had its first confirmed case of CWD in 2021... A map of CWD endemic areas, along with more information, is available on the Game and Fish’s CWD webpage...
State launches new strategy on chronic wasting disease ahead of deer season December 4, 2025 Iowa, News From The States
... Since 2013, chronic wasting disease has been detected in more than 500 deer [523] across 31 Iowa counties... Iowans can also access a dashboard online with chronic wasting disease data by county ..,
Escaped domestic elk in eastern Idaho tests negative for chronic wasting disease December 1, 2025 Idaho Capital Sun
... For the first time in state history, domestic elk from two eastern Idaho captive domestic elk facilities tested positive for CWD in 2024 and early 2025, according to the Idaho State Department of Agriculture. .. The domestic elk escaped less than two years after the Idaho Legislature passed a 2024 law, House Bill 591, that eliminated the requirement to place double-fencing around quarantined domestic Cervidae or elk farms that were under quarantine orders following a positive CWD test...
Low compliance with chronic wasting disease rules alarms Idaho officials November 29, 2025 Idaho, KHQ
... Many hunters were unaware that transporting spine or brain tissue from deer, elk or moose harvested in CWD-positive states is prohibited. Nearly all neighboring states have confirmed cases of CWD...
Is deadly deer disease under control? November 26 2025 Tennessee, Main Street Media of Tennessee
...No additional counties so far this year have reported any deer testing positive for deadly Chronic Wasting Disease ... Biologists are concerned about the legalized deer baiting law recently passed by state legislators over the objections of professional wildlife managers...
Chronic Wasting Disease in Iowa, a series. November 26 2025 Iowa DNR
... Initially, tests were conducted on the brainstem, but as more was learned about the disease tests shifted to the lymph nodes, which were much more accessible than the brainstem. “We made the change because science demonstrated lymph tissue was equally as sensitive or more so than the brainstem, and that increased the efficiency of our sampling,” Harms said...
WDFW Reports New CWD Case Near 2024 Cluster November 24, 2025 Washington, Northwest Sportsman Magazine
... This latest deer was taken in Game Management Unit 124, Mount Spokane, by a hunter who took it in for sampling, and the results came back late last week, according to an agency spokeswoman. It’s the sixth confirmed case of CWD in a Washington deer and first of 2025... Additionally, initial testing on a buck taken by a tribal hunter on the Spokane Indian ..,
Chronic wasting disease detected on Spokane reservation November 23, 2025 Idaho, The Lewiston Tribune
... that the deer was killed by a hunter in late October ... A sample from the deer was tested at the Montana Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory. Officials are waiting on results from a second test to confirm the first result... "deer, elk and moose are not only vital to our ecosystem but are also central to our culture and subsistence hunting,” tribal officials wrote ...
CWD detected in two new Wyoming deer hunt areas November 20, 2025 WGFD News
... The Wyoming Game and Fish Department has confirmed the presence of chronic wasting disease in deer for the first time in two new hunt areas: Deer Hunt Area 106 in the Cody Region, and Deer Hunt Area 150 in the Jackson Region..,
CWD Confirmed at Tom Green County Facility Linked to “Ghost Deer” Investigation November 20, 2025 Texas, TPWD News
... Two positive cases of chronic wasting disease (CWD) have been confirmed at a Tom Green County deer breeding facility owned by Ken Schlaudt, 64, of San Antonio.... The facility is one of several linked to the recent “Ghost Deer” investigation, in which Texas Game Wardens uncovered widespread, coordinated deer breeding violations including, but not limited to: smuggling captive breeder deer and free-range white-tailed deer between breeder facilities and ranches; CWD testing violations; license violations; and misdemeanor and felony drug charges relating to the possession and mishandling of prescribed sedation drugs classified as controlled substances...
Richland County Deer Farm Confirmed with CWD November 17, 2025 Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection
... a Richland County deer farm has tested positive for chronic wasting disease (CWD)... The positive result came from a 3-year-old buck. The premises is quarantined, where it will remain while DATCP and the U.S. Department of Agriculture veterinarians and staff conduct the epidemiological investigation..,
Chronic wasting disease detected on Spokane Reservation November 14, 2025 Washington, The Spokesman-Review
... A white-tailed deer on the Spokane Indian Reservation has tested positive for chronic wasting disease... killed by a hunter in late October ... the fifth time an animal killed in Washington has tested positive ..,
DNR reports Allegan County’s first CWD-positive wild deer November 13, 2025 Michigan DNR
... Allegan is now the 17th Michigan county where chronic wasting disease has been identified in the wild deer population, according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. An emaciated doe reported by residents of Leighton Township recently tested positive for the disease... The declining health of this 1.5-year-old doe was first noted by private landowners in late summer. In late September, the DNR was contacted ..,
A quick and dirty guide to white-tailed deer hunting this year November 6, 2025 Idaho State Journal
... Fall 2022 was a low spot for white-tailed deer harvest. The reason for that 10-year low was not bitter cold, but hot, dry weather and biting midges. Epizootic hemorrhagic disease wreaked havoc on the Clearwater Region’s whitetails that summer, killing thousands of deer... The return of EHD in 2025 ... As of Oct. 27, biologists have received reports of roughly 1,080 white-tailed deer mortalities in the Clearwater Region and 386 in the Panhandle Region suspected to be caused by EHD..,
Chronic Wasting Disease Detected in Pulaski County October 29, 2025 Kentucky DNR News
... This is the second wild deer in Kentucky confirmed with CWD ... Chronic Wasting Disease has previously been confirmed in a wild deer in Ballard County in December 2023 and nine deer from a captive cervid facility in Breckinridge County, with one in October 2024 and eight in August 2025...
CWD spreads across Wisconsin October 24, 2025 apg-wi.com
... The Apple Creek Deer Farm, located in Oconto County, claims they’ve the largest whitetail deer breeding farm and hunting ranch in America. They also claim they’ve made inroads into eliminating CWD by breeding deer that are resistant to CWD by testing over 2,000 deer from their farm... “The deer they are calling resistant are not immune. They still get infected with the disease; they just take longer to die and shed prions into the environment for a longer period of time ..." [Retired veterinarian and former Chairman of the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board Dave Clausen] ...
New Science: Rubs and Scrapes Glow Like Highway Reflectors to a Deer’s Eyes October 15, 2025 Georgia, National Deer Association
... in twilight woods, deer eyes likely see a blue or purple light emanating from fresh rubs like glow sticks drawing them to a hub of social information about their deer neighbors... the photoluminescence was in a range that closely aligned with a deer’s visual sensitivity. In particular, the 365 nm light source produced photoluminescence that almost perfectly aligned with deer sensitivity, though 395 nm also produced photoluminescence uniquely visible to deer...
Chronic Wasting Disease confirmed in Prentiss County deer October 15, 2025 Mississippi, Darkhorse Press
... The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks has confirmed the first case of Chronic Wasting Disease in Prentiss County after a hunter-harvested buck tested positive during the 2025 Velvet Season...
New chronic wasting disease case confirmed at Portage County deer farm October 10, 2025 Wisconsin, Sioux County Radio
... in Portage County where there are two licensed deer farms. The positive test came from a three-year-old buck. DATCP officials say the premises is now quarantined ..,
Chronic wasting disease persists in Aspen area October 9, 2025 Colorado, The Aspen Times
... Chronic wasting disease continues to be considered “one of the greatest concerns for deer survival” in Northwest Colorado ... As of an April 2025 memo, CPW reports from the 2022 to the 2024 hunting seasons confirm CWD has decreased in four herds, increased in 14 herds, and remained the same in 16 herds...
Chronic Wasting Disease notification system to debut statewide October 8, 2025 Illinois, WAND-TV
... hunters throughout Illinois who provide a phone number with their CWD sample and have an email address linked to their ExploreMoreIL accounts will receive text and email notifications of test results...
Western Pa. hunters face new rules as state tries to manage chronic wasting disease in deer October 6, 2025 Pennsylvania, TribLive
... In Pennsylvania, the majority of confirmed cases are concentrated in the south-central part of the state near Bedford and Blair counties...sportsmen who harvest deer within a disease management area aren’t allowed to bring its “high-risk parts” outside the management area or even to another management area unless they’re taken directly to a Game Commission-approved cooperating processor...
New CWD Case Expands Zone To Include Lowndes County October 1, 2025 Georgia Outdoor News
… A third case of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is confirmed in Georgia.
In a statement, DNR said, “Early this week, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (GA DNR) received confirmation notification that a 2 1/2-year-old buck in Lanier County tested positive for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD).../
Idaho’s recent history with CWD September 29, 2025 Idaho Fish and Game
A total of 100 deer and elk (mostly deer) have tested positive for CWD in Idaho since it was first detected in 2021. That’s a relatively small number considering hunters in 2024 alone killed about 21,000 elk and 45,000 deer...
Chronic wasting disease detected in Page County September 26, 2025 Virginia, Rocktown Now
... This marks the first confirmed case of CWD in the county... DWR has been monitoring CWD prevalence and spread in Virginia since 2002, with the first case detected in Frederick County in 2009. Since then, it has spread across parts of Virginia and has been detected in wild white-tailed deer in 18 counties..,
IDNR Announces Chronic Wasting Disease Sampling Locations For Deer Hunters September 25, 2025 Illinois
RiverBender.com
... It was first detected in a suspect adult female deer from northwest Boone County in 2002. Since then, 185,896 wild deer have been sampled statewide, and 2,748 individual deer tested positive for CWD. The disease has been detected across a 25-county area of northern and west-central Illinois..
Help Prevent Chronic Wasting Disease in New Hampshire September 25, 2025 NH Fish and Game Department
... In October 2024, a red deer from a captive facility in Herkimer County, NY tested positive for chronic wasting disease (CWD). This was the first CWD detection in New York since 2005 and is the closest confirmed case of CWD to the New Hampshire border. Movement of captive cervids (members of the deer family including moose, deer, elk, and caribou, as well as any species of captive deer) remains the number one threat in the spread of CWD, but the transportation of high-risk cervid parts including the brain, spinal cord, and lymph nodes across state lines can also play a significant role in its dispersal ...
Wild deer tests positive for chronic wasting disease in Genesee County September 24, 2025 Michigan, ClickOnDetroit
... A 2.5-year-old doe in Gaines Township tested positive for CWD, making Genesee County the 16th Michigan county with CWD. The doe was reportedly very skinny, drinking continuously and walked directly up to a conservation officer...
Washington wildlife officials urge hunters to help stop spread of chronic wasting disease September 16, 2025 KXLY.com
... The department operates hunter check stations Monday through Thursday around the state, including one in Spokane Valley. Hunters can submit samples and receive results within four to six weeks. The testing process uses lymph nodes from elk and deer to detect the presence of chronic wasting disease...
The Ministère encourages hunters to contribute to the surveillance of chronic wasting disease of cervids September 15, 2025 Quebec, Cantech Letter
... Hunters who harvest a white-tailed deer over 12 months old within a 45 km radius of the cervid farm infected in 2018 are strongly encouraged to have their game analyzed to detect CWD... The efforts of everyone involved have made Québec one of the few places in North America where the disease has been detected in an enclosure, but not in the surrounding wildlife...
Deer farm herd killed to stem spread of 'zombie' deer disease in Kentucky. Now what? September 8, 2025 News From The States
... A disease outbreak on a Kentucky deer farm is renewing questions about whether stronger rules are needed for the more than 100 “captive cervid facilities” the state has permitted... State and federal agencies recently confirmed eight cases of chronic wasting disease (CWD) at a deer farm in Breckinridge County where the illness had first been detected in a single deer in October 2024… Only 10 cases have been confirmed in Kentucky — nine of them on the Breckinridge County farm
Chronic wasting disease case found in wild deer in Oklahoma Panhandle August 23, 2025 KOCO 5 News on MSN
... the state's fourth case of a wild deer infected with chronic wasting disease was confirmed earlier this month... A white-tailed deer was found in Texas County after a landowner reported the animal behaving abnormally..,
San Angelo man implicated in largest deer smuggling scheme in Texas history August 14, 2025 Yahoo on MSN
... “The “Ghost Deer” investigation has uncovered widespread, coordinated deer breeding violations including, but not limited to: smuggling captive breeder deer and free-range whitetail deer between breeder facilities and ranches, Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) testing violations, license violations ..,
LDWF expands deer Chronic Wasting Disease control zone ahead of Cenla public hearings July 30, 2025 Louisiana, KALB on MSN
... The proposed expansion stems from the detection of a CWD-positive white‑tailed deer harvested in Catahoula Parish in March 2025, the first confirmed wild deer case outside of Tensas Parish. With CWD first detected in Louisiana in 2022, this marks the 40th case in the state ..,
Missouri Department of Conservation enforces fines for feeding deer in certain counties July 17, 2025 KY3
... Hunters and landowners in 73% of Missouri’s counties are under a CWD management zone... because putting feed and mineral for deer artificially congregates them. It puts them into closer proximity with each other and increases the risk of transmitting Chronic Wasting Disease ...
Pennsylvania identifies CWD case near Allegheny County July 14, 2025 CIDRAP - University of Minnesota
... Chronic wasting disease (CWD) has been identified in Armstrong County, posing a risk of spread to suburban and urban areas with high deer densities, given the location northeast of Pittsburgh... “This is the first time CWD has been detected in such a populated area,” ..,
CWD threat nears Henry County July 14, 2025 Iowa, Southeast Iowa Union
... Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), a fatal neurological illness affecting deer and elk, is drawing growing concern from local conservation officials after confirmed cases surfaced just north of Burlington...
Deer urine OK’d for use by Pennsylvania hunters after testing flap: What the science says July 13, 2025 Lehigh Valley Live
... Stripping out the testing rule “does not make any sense,” Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Lehigh/Northampton, said on the Senate floor in June. Boscola stressed that dozens of other states either ban the use of deer urine as a lure due to CWD concerns, or enforce stringent testing rules...
Pa. set to enact Sunday hunting law after intrigue over deer urine July 9, 2025 Pennsylvania, PennLive on MSN
... As originally written, the bill that passed the state House required such urine to be tested for chronic wasting disease (CWD) ... But that urine testing requirement was taken out of the bill by a Senate committee ... game commission biologists who “told us that they weren’t convinced that CWD traveled in urine,” at least not to the extent that mass testing was warranted ...
Chronic Wasting Disease Continues Spread in Pennsylvania Deer July 5, 2025 Lancaster Farming
... The most recent case — a red deer from a deer farm in Wayne County — was confirmed by a USDA lab on March 28 after it was submitted for testing on Jan. 20... the deer was moved to the Wayne County facility from Huntingdon County on Oct. 25, 2021...
USDA Giving States $12M To Fight CWD In Animals, Prevent Spillover To People June 25, 2025 KFF Health News
... The funds will be used to increase surveillance and testing for the fatal prion disease that affects cervids such as deer, elk, and moose. There has not been a documented human infection of chronic wasting disease...
Maryland Department of Natural Resources’ Annual Survey Detects 62 Deer with Chronic Wasting Disease in 2024 June 24, 2025 Maryland Department of Natural Resources
... 62 white-tailed deer sampled in 2024 tested positive for chronic wasting disease ... all but one came from within the existing chronic wasting disease management area, which included Allegany (34), Baltimore (0), Carroll (0), Frederick (7), Montgomery (3), and Washington (17) counties. Chronic wasting disease was also detected for the first time in one deer sampled from Howard County... Concerns about chronic wasting disease should not stop anyone from hunting deer or enjoying venison?
Officials: CWD prevalence low in Idaho Panhandle June 22, 2025 The Lewiston Tribune
... After finding chronic wasting disease in a white-tailed deer outside of Bonners Ferry, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game ramped up sampling efforts ... biologists estimated the disease’s prevalence in the zone at 0.33%.... In a portion of central Idaho, where the disease was first found in 2021, a dedicated deer cull found that 10% of the animals killed had the disease..,
Rock County deer farm quarantined after CWD found in doe June 10, 2025 Wisconsin, Yahoo Sports on MSN
... Wisconsin was the first state east of the Mississippi River known to have CWD-positive deer. The first CWD detections in Wisconsin were reported in 2002 both in wild deer near Mt. Horeb and in farmed deer at a facility in Portage County... The DATCP information also shows 23 CWD-positive captive cervid facilities (15 deer shooting preserves and eight deer farms) remain open for business in the state. The information is dated Jan. 2025..,
CWD case confirmed at Rock County deer farm May 29, 2025 Wisconsin, Channel 3000
... The positive test came from a five and a half-year-old doe... he farm will be quarantined until DATCP and the U.S. Department of Agriculture conduct an epidemiological investigation..,
Course on chronic wasting disease set for June in Henry County May 27, 2025 Iowa DNR
... Graduates of the three-week training program become “ambassadors” for the science-based management of chronic wasting disease. Ambassadors are knowledgeable in the management, prevention, and testing for the disease and equipped with communication skills and resources to help educate others within their community... The course is taught through in-person instructions ...
Illinois poised to change deadly deer disease management with 2 new bills May 26,2025 KSDK
...`Bill 2339 would ban the IDNR's sharpshooting program, which employs agency-trained shooters to purge deer populations to maintain low CWD infection rates, from managing the disease in areas that haven't had reported cases for over three years... Bill 2340 lowers the minimum number of acres a landowner needs to own to obtain a deer hunting permit from 40 acres to 20 acres ...
Ivey signs off on final bills of 2025 legislative session May 25, 2025 Alabama Daily News
... House Bill 509 Prohibits Alabama state agencies from killing, testing or restricting the transfer of captive deer owned by licensed game breeders due to disease, with some exceptions...
Culling efforts wrap up May 22, 2025 Minnesota DNR
Targeted culling is a management action used to slow the spread of CWD where it is known to exist. The Minnesota DNR does not cull deer across a broad area; all efforts are focused within 2 miles of recent positives within the past couple years. All culling is conducted with landowner permission. Nearly 30% of all CWD-positive deer found in Minnesota since 2010 were removed through culling...
Help Keep New Hampshire Free from CWD May 21, 2025 Fish and Game News
... New Hampshire’s white-tailed deer population once again showed no evidence of chronic wasting disease (CWD), based on monitoring data gathered during the 2024 hunting season... all 404 deer sampled during the 2024 deer season tested negative ...Studies have shown these prions are found in nervous system tissue, lymph nodes, saliva, urine, and feces, among other places. Urine for natural lures is collected from captive deer facilities outside of New Hampshire ... Fish and Game strongly discourages the use of natural urine-based deer lures ...
Wildlife Health Lab tests more than 5,200 CWD samples in 2024 May 19, 2025 Wyoming Game and Fish News
... The Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s Wildlife Health Laboratory tested 5,276 samples from big game animals for chronic wasting disease in 2024. Testing was completed earlier this year and samples were submitted from throughout the state. CWD was detected in 726 of those samples submitted...
Arizona’s deer, elk populations still remain CWD-free May 18, 2025 Arizona Game and Fish News
... Department officials did not find any cases of CWD in the 1,543 deer (mule and white-tailed) and elk that were sampled in 2024. AZGFD collected 711 samples from animals that were harvested and voluntarily submitted by hunters, and another 787 samples through partnerships with game processors and taxidermists. An additional 45 samples were obtained from high priority animals that were involved in vehicle collisions or subject to other fatalities.... AZGFD has been testing for the presence of the disease in Arizona since 1998. While CWD has been found in the neighboring states of Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, and California, the disease has not been detected in Arizona ..,
HB509 legislation that dealt with deer breeders across the state May 16, 2025 Outdoor Alabama
... The legislation was strongly opposed by ADCNR and numerous national and state wildlife organizations. “It passed last week with an amendment that we negotiated where we will not go in any deer breeder facilities that are in a CWD (chronic wasting disease) zone and kill deer for testing without a link to a positive somewhere else in the facility,” Commissioner Blankenship said. “There was also a section in that legislation that requires us by March 1, 2026, to work with the industry and others, like the Wildlife Society, the Alabama Wildlife Federation, universities, the state veterinarian and our staff to develop a method to be able to allow movement of deer from deer breeders in a CWD zone to facilities outside the zone if they meet certain criteria we will establish by rule...
Rockingham County added to chronic wasting disease DMA May 9, 2025 Virginia, CBS19 News
... The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources says Rockingham County is being added to DMA2 because of positive CWD detections in West Virginia within 10 miles of the border... DWR says more than 8,100 deer were tested for the disease during its most recent CWD surveillance effort, resulting in 109 positive detections...
McPherson wants spotlight on CWD-contaminated deer pens May 6, 2025 Louisiana Sportsman
... McPherson said. “What ought to be on the other topic is talking with the Department of Ag, asking what they are going to do with these contaminated pens after they depopulate them.” McPherson hinted to a Catahoula Parish deer pen that CWD-exposed deer were taken to, asking, “Anybody in the room know? I didn’t think so. Nobody is asking the right question.” ...
Wisconsin Claims Record Deer Populations and High Harvests, But CWD Trouble Looms May 2, 2025 Yahoo
... The five counties with the highest prevalence rates all saw significant harvest declines in 2024 compared to their five-year average. The most stark example was Iowa County, which saw a 25 percent decline in buck harvest and a 30 percent decline in doe harvest. That county had a prevalence rate of 25 percent...
Wildlife officials confirm 2nd case of fatal disease in Georgia deer April 23, 2025 FOX 5 Atlanta on MSN
... a second deer has tested positive for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), a fatal neurological condition affecting deer, elk, and moose. A previous case had been found in Lanier County in January - just 400 yards away from where the second case was confirmed..,
Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Commission proposes regulation changes April 23, 2025 Messenger-Inquirer
... Following the 2024-2025 hunting season, no new CWD cases have been found to date in Kentucky’s wild deer and elk from among the more than 9,000 samples tested statewide. To date, CWD has been confirmed in one wild deer in Ballard County (2023) and one fenced deer operation in Breckinridge County (2024) ..,
More than 240 cases of chronic wasting disease found in Missouri deer April 21, 2025 FOX 2 on MSN
... More than 240 new cases of chronic wasting disease (CWD) have been confirmed in deer across 35 counties in Missouri ... The positive CWD cases found across the state stem from testing more than 36,000 deer during the past hunting season and post-season removal efforts, with most cases being deer submitted by hunters during the 2024–25 deer-hunting season..,
Four mid-Missouri counties see first CWD case April 21, 2025 KOMU 8
… Across 35 counties in the past year, the conservation department reported 243 new cases of CWD, which is a fatal neurological disease that affects deer…,
CWD, Utah officials express concern amid uptick in Wyoming zombie deer disease April 15, 2025 ABC4 Utah on MSN
... Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) ... While the numbers started low, a report from the 2021-22 fiscal year showed only eight positive cases. Stout said the division has had 82 positive cases since July 2024..,
Six new counties had positive cases of chronic wasting disease, DNR says April 15, Iowa, The Gazette
... DNR recorded 135 individual positive detections through the 2024-25 surveillance season ... During the 2023-24 surveillance season, the DNR recorded 128 positive cases, up from 96 the previous season, 52 the season before that, and 21 in 2020-21..,
Hunters score victory with bill that overrules North Dakota Game and Fish policy April 11, 2025 North Dakota Monitor
... Charlie Bahnson, wildlife veterinarian for Game and Fish, said in written testimony that chronic wasting disease is still rare in North Dakota, but the department needs the feeding restrictions as a management tool. But Rep. Matt Ruby, R-Minot, argued that the bans have no effect on the spread of the disease that can be fatal in deer. ... North Dakota has had 122 positive tests of chronic wasting disease in deer since 2009 ..,
Chronic wasting disease detected in four additional Illinois counties April 11, 2025 Illinois Department of Natural Resources
... Chronic wasting disease, or CWD, has been detected in Putnam, Marshall, Adams, and Peoria counties ... Adams County is the first documented case recorded outside of the leading edge of the CWD endemic region..,
Game and Fish tests more than 5,000 samples for CWD in 2024 April 7, 2025 Wyoming Game and Fish Department
... tested 5,276 samples for chronic wasting disease, and 726 came back positive — 13.7% statewide — and saw CWD prevalence for mule deer increase throughout the state... Of those samples tested, 19.4% came back positive in hunter-harvested mule deer bucks, 29.2% in hunter-harvested white-tailed bucks and 2.3% in adult, hunter-harvested elk. The percentage of mule deer bucks increased from 2023 at 18.9%. The percentages for white-tailed deer and elk decreased from 2023 at 30.3% and 2.8,% respectively. There were no positive CWD samples from moose..,
Deer farmers seek relief from fencing rules April 3, 2025 Minnesota, The Timberjay
... The regulations were intended to tighten controls to prevent the spread of chronic wasting disease ... “The DNR estimated a loss of 39 white-tailed deer farms from 140 in January of 2023 to 101 farms as of February 2024,” the motion stated. “The most recent losses are attributed to recent changes in the law, and the DNR’s recent requirement for an additional exclusionary fence, economically devastating to white-tailed deer farmers.” ...
More Ohio deer are dying from Chronic Wasting Disease. Here's why that matters March 27, 2025 The Statehouse News Bureau
... CWD was first found in the state in 2020. Since then, there’s been 73 total deer that have tested positive ... “At some point in the future, maybe we'll be talking about CWD as a threat to conservation of deer species ..." [Clint McCoy, wildlife biologist with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources]
CWD discovered in Hennepin County deer March 24, 2025 Minnesota, NewsBreak
... found in a male buck in the Greenfield area. This is the first case found in Hennepin County... shot by a hunter ...“If a hunter or a person transported that carcass out of the zone to a new area, threw it out on the landscape to decompose, then those prions which cause CWD can accumulate right there at that site,” ..,
Deer farmers, DNR clash over fence rules intended to curb spread of chronic wasting disease March 24, 2025 Minnesota House of Representatives
... At issue was chronic wasting disease and whether captive, farmed white-tailed deer need to be kept at a distance from their free-range cousins to keep the disease from spreading... HF40 ... would eliminate a provision in a 2023 law requiring deer farmers to put up specially configured fencing to nix the nose nudging...
Deer farmers, DNR clash over fence rules intended to curb spread of chronic wasting disease March 24, 2025 Minnesota House of Representatives
... At issue was chronic wasting disease and whether captive, farmed white-tailed deer need to be kept at a distance from their free-range cousins to keep the disease from spreading... HF40 ... would eliminate a provision in a 2023 law requiring deer farmers to put up specially configured fencing to nix the nose nudging...
White-tailed deer tests positive for Chronic Wasting Disease at Manassas National Battlefield Park March 24, 2025 Virginia, NPS.gov
... one deer tested positive for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) at Manassas National Battlefield Park. The animal was from the Prince William County, Virginia portion of the park. This is the first CWD-positive detection at Manassas National Battlefield Park...
The Other Terrifying Deer Disease Creeping Across the US March 25, 2025 ZME Science
... chronic wasting disease (CWD) ... the disease may be reaching a dangerous critical point... In southern Saskatchewan, for example, nearly 80% of male mule deer now carry CWD...
Deadly chronic wasting disease found in urban deer in B.C. March 19, 2025 British Columbia, CBC.ca on MSN
... Officials were in Cranbrook and Kimberley working to determine if the condition had made its way into the area after five other cases of CWD were found nearby in the province... was discovered in B.C. for the first time last year...
Chronic Wasting Disease found in 17 Mississippi counties March 18, 2025 WJTV
... Officials ... collected more than 10,500 samples during the 2024-25 deer season for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) testing. According to the agency, there have been 127 positives detected since July 1, 2024, making this the highest year yet for CWD in Mississippi ..,
Game Commission Delivers Annual Report March 18, 2025 Pennsylvania Game Commision News
... in Bedford and Fulton counties ... nearly half of the hunter-harvested adult deer in this region tested positive for CWD ... the Board of Commissioners instituted an extended firearms season in three Wildlife Management Units to increase the antlerless deer harvest ..,
New CWD cases detected in Elk Hunt area, new feedground March 17, 2025 Wyoming Fish and Game News
... The Wyoming Game and Fish Department has reported two new cases of chronic wasting disease: Elk Hunt Area 62 in the Cody Region and on the Horse Creek Feedground, which is located in Elk Hunt Area 84 in the Jackson Region... Horse Creek Feedground is the fourth feedground in the state to have confirmed positive for CWD among elk. Elk Hunt Area 84, which had previously tested positive for CWD, is bordered by Elk Hunt Area 87 which is also CWD-positive..,
CWD Case Found in a White-tailed Deer in Catahoula Parish March 17, 2025 Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries
... a confirmed case of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in a hunter-harvested white-tailed buck in Catahoula Parish. This is the first CWD confirmed positive in a wild deer outside of Tensas Parish. CWD was first detected in Louisiana in 2022. The latest positive brings the total number of CWD detections for Louisiana to 34..,
U.P. Deer Farm using strategic breeding genetics to resist Chronic Wasting Disease March 14, 2025 Michigan, WZMQ 19 News
... They discovered that CWD Prions found in soil, coming from remains of infected animals such as in saliva, urine or feces, can be greatly reduced by using Humic Acids in their fertilizers... Dan hopes for his farm to become the first in the country to successfully raise a full deer herd, completely resistant to the disease. Eventually reaching the goal of sending them into the wild, to spread these genetics with other deer in the area...
DNR reports Washtenaw Countys first CWD-positive wild deer March 12, 2025 Michigan DNR News
... Washtenaw is now the 15th Michigan county where chronic wasting disease has been identified in the wild deer population ... An adult buck found acting ill in Salem Township recently tested positive for CWD... While this is the first positive in Washtenaw County, 39 deer in neighboring Jackson County have tested positive ..,
CWD found in new hunt area March 11, 2025 Wyoming, WGFD News
... The Wyoming Game and Fish Department has detected chronic wasting disease in an adult cow elk from Elk Hunt Area 93 at the Black Butte Feedground... located in the Pinedale Region and is bordered by two CWD-positive elk areas: 87 and 92. This is the first documented case of CWD in the hunt area and the first confirmed case of an elk with CWD on this feedground..,
Chronic wasting disease found in farmed deer in mid-Michigan March 11, 2025 mlive on MSN
... The case involved a 7-year-old deer from Osceola County, the Michigan Department of Agriculture & Rural Development (MDARD) reported Tuesday, March 11. Investigations are ongoing to determine if there are any additional exposures to other deer..,[read the MDARD report]
Kaufman County deer breeding facility quarantined due to chronic wasting disease March 10, 2025 Texas, KETK.com on MSN
... placed under quarantine by the Texas Animal Health Commission ... a 20-month-old male and an eight-month-old female..,
CWD cases 'concerning' for Jackson Elk, biologist says March 7, 2025, Wyoming Public Radio
... [Ben Wise, a state wildlife biologist]: We had assumed that when we started detecting CWD in elk in western Wyoming, it would be pretty slow. Kind of like what we've seen in other parts of the feedground system... To have it pop up at Dell Creek in multiple animals in the same year, in the same fairly short time span. We're kind of past that point at that particular feedground. We're past that slow build... It's coming from all directions..,
Know the Facts: Chronic Wasting, Epizootic Hemorrhagic diseases in Iowa March 7, 2025 Iowa, Tama-Toledo News Chronicle
... The DNR tests between 5,000 and 6,000 deer annually, which represents about 5% of annual harvest. In the most recent testing cycle, 132 deer tested positive, with two additional suspect cases pending confirmation... the number of EHD cases in Tama County have varied in severity, with ... 75 carcasses being reported in 2024..,
Kentucky: Wild Deer & Elk Population Protection Bill Stuck in House March 5, 2025 Sportsmen's Alliance
... House Bill 700 ... outlines the boundaries of a CWD Surveillance Zone related to the exportation of cervid carcass parts and wild cervids ... also prohibits the movement of captive cervids outside of a 10-mile radius from a captive facility that had a CWD detection. It does not prohibit the interstate movement of cervids ...
How is chronic wasting disease impacting deer and elk herds in northwest Colorado? February 28, 2025 Summit Daily
... Prevalence of chronic wasting disease in males is twice as high as it is in females, Banulis said. It also has been shown to have a lesser impact on Colorado’s more migratory populations ... “When animals are concentrated, they don’t move, then you get more nose-to-nose contact, there’s prion deposition in the soils,” ...
Texas Game Wardens Bust Illegal Deer Operations Across the State February 27, 2025 TWPD News
... The suspects and charges are associated with three deer breeding facilities, ten release sites, one deer management pen and three illegal facilities not registered in the Texas Wildlife Information Management Services (TWIMS) database, meaning they were operating or receiving deer in violation of registration requirements and disease monitoring protocols... Without close monitoring, illegal movement of captive deer increases the risk of introducing CWD to areas it is not known to exist ...
New Clark County baiting and feeding ban going into effect Saturday September 25, 2025 Wisconsin, WQOW
... a farm-raised deer in Eau Claire County tested positive for chronic wasting disease (CWD). This deer is within 10 miles from the border of both Clark and Jackson Counties...
Chronic wasting disease increases in much of northeastern Montana February 25, 2025 Montana, NBC Montana
... “Region-wide, CWD prevalence in adult mule deer has increased from around 3 percent of the 2018-19 samples to almost 18 percent of 2024 samples,” said Scott Hemmer, Havre-area biologist ... In Hunting District 670, the prevalence rate was 34%..,
Prions in Muscles of Cervids with Chronic Wasting Disease, Norway - Emerging Infectious Diseases, 2025
... Our findings highlight the systemic nature of CWD strains in Europe and raise questions regarding the risk of human exposure through edible tissues...
Statewide bans on baiting, feeding wildlife proposed to help fight CWD February 23, 2025 Washington, The Lewiston Tribune
... Statewide bans on feeding wildlife and using bait to hunt big game are among a suite of rules proposed to help Washington limit the spread of chronic wasting disease long into the future... The proposals are open for public comment with public hearings planned for March...
Ohio may expand tracking as chronic wasting disease spreads in deer. What it means for you February 23, 2025 Yahoo on MSN
... First identified in a wild deer taken in 2020 near Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area in Wyandot County, the total of confirmed CWD infections last week stood at 75. Since the Wyandot County find, infected deer have been confirmed in four more contiguous counties, Marion, Hardin, Allen and Morrow...
Second positive case of chronic wasting disease confirmed in Indiana February 21, 2025 Indiana DNR
... The positive, wild white-tailed deer was a 2.5-year-old male harvested in Posey County... The deer was confirmed positive for CWD by two independent tests..,
Hannibal, State conservation department given special permission to mitigate spread of 'zombie deer disease' February 19, 2025 Missouri, Muddy River News
... The Hannibal City Council unanimously approved Tuesday night to grant the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) an exemption from the city’s prohibition of firearm use for their efforts in preventing the spread of chronic wasting disease (CWD)... ecently have been found in a deer within city limits ...
North Dakota CWD Test Results February 20, 2025 NDGF News
The North Dakota Game and Fish Department tested 1,456 animals for chronic wasting disease during the 2024 sampling season. Game and Fish confirmed 17 deer tested positive for CWD, 15 of which were taken by hunters and two were clinical deer confirmed through diagnostic examination..,
200 urban deer to be killed in B.C. cities in effort to stop spread of chronic wasting disease February 14, 2025 British Columbia, CBC on MSN
... The cull, set for Feb. 18-28, will target the cities of Cranbrook and Kimberley, with 100 deer in each location to be killed and tested. Lands Minister Randene Neill said the focus of the cull is not so much to control the population, but to be able to gather a large sample to determine the extent to which the disease is present in urban populations...
Province Improves Chronic Wasting Disease Surveillance Program February 14, 2025 Province of Manitoba News Releases
... First detected in the province in 2021, a total of 30 positive cases of CWD have been detected to date. This includes four positive cases identified during the 2024-25 hunting season. Cases were identified from mandatory biological sampling submissions of animals as well as animals harvested by department staff as part of ongoing CWD management efforts to reduce the spread..,
LDWF announces three additional deer found positive with CWD in captivity pens February 13, 2025 Louisiana Radio Network
... LDWF confirmed new captive Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) cases, raising concerns about the potential spread to wild deer. LDWF Veterinarian Dr. Jonathan Roberts says five additional positives were detected this season. “This all originated in Tensas Parish, and that’s currently in our control area … a recent case where two mule deer were illegally harvested and transported from Colorado to Louisiana...
Chronic wasting disease has exploded through Alberta's deer population. Can it be stopped? February 13, 2025 Canada, MSN
... Fifteen years ago, chronic wasting disease was rare in the province's deer populations ... In the most recent surveillance, some of those areas were seeing 50 to 85 per cent of mule deer infected, while the disease has exploded westward and northward through the province ... a lot of hope lies within the CWD vaccine area ...
Sixty positive Chronic Wasting Disease cases detected in eastern Nebraska deer February 12, 2025 ksnblocal4
... Sixty positive cases of Chronic Wasting Disease in deer were detected during surveillance conducted in eastern Nebraska during the November firearm deer season, Nebraska Game and Parks states. More than 1,400 samples were collected from harvested deer ..,=
CWD detected in Baxter and Cleburne counties February 12, 2025 Arkansas Game and Fish Commission
... The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission recently confirmed that two deer in Cleburne County and another deer in Baxter County have tested positive for chronic wasting disease. Both deer were harvested during the 2024-25 deer hunting season. They join samples from Conway and Stone counties that were confirmed CWD-positive earlier in the season...
Texas Game Wardens Uncover Illegal White-Tailed Deer Smuggling Operation February 6, 2025 TPWD News
... A South Texas deer breeder and his business partner were caught attempting to smuggle seven deer from a licensed deer breeding facility in East Texas through Montgomery County to Brazoria and Duval counties, where they intended to illegally release the deer into the wild on private property. The case unfolded when a Montgomery County Game Warden conducted a traffic stop and discovered the illegally possessed deer being transported without required documentation or identification ...
Three Additional CWD Positive Deer Found in Captive Pens, LDWF Announces February 5, 2025 Louisiana, LDWF News
... three additional chronic wasting disease (CWD) positive captive deer in pens permitted by the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry (LDAF). The recent detections in Concordia, St. Landry and Tangipahoa parishes are linked to trace outs from a captive CWD positive deer pen in Jefferson Davis Parish, where CWD was first confirmed in a captive deer back in November. In addition to the recent detections, deer from the CWD positive pens have been traced to permitted pens in 11 other parishes. No other positives have been confirmed at this time..,
Hunters help FWP collect most CWD samples since testing began February 3, 2025 Montana FWP News
... Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks submitted 9,066 samples for chronic wasting disease testing in 2024-2025 hunting season to date. This is the largest number of CWD samples ever to be collected in a single year in Montana. Many of these samples were collected by hunters themselves. Of those samples, 335 tested positive for the disease, including 202 white-tailed deer, 127 mule deer and six elk..,
CWD, Not every issue has to be a part of the culture wars February 1, 2025 North Dakota, Jamestown Sun
... The fight over chronic wasting disease in North Dakota has turned into a new front in the culture wars ... Dusty Backer, one of the loudest critics of the NDGF's restrictions on bait hunting (which wildlife experts say can contribute to the spread of prion diseases of which CWD is one) agreed to an interview on Plain Talk. He asserted that "prions don't exist." ...
Newly Detected CWD Positives in Northeast PA January 31, 2025 Pennsylvania Game Commission
... The two deer, one hunter-harvested and one from a captive facility, were detected in Luzerne County. Both deer were adult males. The Luzerne County detections are 40 miles from the nearest wild CWD detection ..,
Deer farmers want to use genetics to address chronic wasting disease in Senate Bill January 30, 2025 Indiana, WFYI
... Senate bill, SB 32, aims to make Indiana’s deer more genetically resilient to chronic wasting disease. It’s an incurable illness in deer that causes neurological problems, much like mad cow disease. While deer farmers support the bill, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and conservation groups have concerns..,
Wisconsin DNR says CWD sinking deer herds in disease-endemic areas Janaury 29, 2025 Antigo Daily Journal
... chronic wasting disease, the always fatal sickness whose infectious prions now kill more female deer in highly contaminated areas than hunters kill with bullets and arrows. Roughly speaking, that’s much of Iowa, Sauk and Richland counties, and western Dane County...
DNR expands fight against CWD after the deer disease crops up in Hennepin and Clay counties January 28, 2025 Michigan, Star Tribune
... confirmed infections near Greenfield in western Hennepin County and Hawley in Clay County, which borders Fargo. The positive test results were detected in antlered bucks harvested by hunters during the firearms season..,
Chronic wasting disease confirmed in wild deer in 2 new Minnesota deer permit areas January 27, 2025 Minnesota, KFGO
... One deer was harvested in DPA 266 near Hawley in Clay County and the other deer was harvested in DPA 701 near Greenfield in Hennepin County. Both deer were harvested during the firearms deer season..,
Discovery of deer disease puts $1.6 billion hunting industry on alert January 27, 2025 Georgia, MSN
... Deer hunting has a $1.6 billion impact in Georgia and supports more than 150,000 jobs ... The state has been monitoring the deer herd since 2002 and collects 1,800 samples monthly ... "It wasn't a sick deer. It was just a routine surveillance that we do." ..,
Chronic wasting disease, an unstoppable killer of deer, creeping closer to Columbus January 26, 2025 Ohio, MSN
... CWD was confirmed in a doe taken during 2024 on a sliver of the Delaware Wildlife Area ... From 2014 and into 2020, 25 confirmed cases of CWD had been found, all restricted to four captive herds in Ohio. Since the initial 2020 confirmation within the free-range population, 72 infected deer have been identified among almost 33,000 tested..,
'Saudi Syndrome' and the future of hunting in Colorado January 25, 2025 The Daily Sentinel
... the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP), a large national coalition of hunting and fishing groups, always-fatal Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is the biggest threat to the future of deer hunting. The same can also be said for elk hunting. Today, 82% of Colorado’s deer herds and 40% of our elk herds have some level of CWD infection, and it’s getting worse. Already, one in four deer in the largest herd in the state — the White River herd — have CWD..,
Iowa DNR: two additional cases of CWD reported in SW Iowa January 24, 2025 KMA Land
... one case in Fremont County, roughly two and a half miles west of Percival near the Missouri River, and another in Pottawattamie County just northwest of Avoca. "The one in Fremont County is not really that close to the positive we had there in 2021--it's over eight miles ...he one in Pottawattamie County is about six-and-a-half miles from the positive that was found just north of Walnut ..,
Chronic wasting disease detected in Georgia deer for the first time January 24, 2025 Phys.org
... In a statement, DNR Commissioner Walter Rabon sought to reassure hunters, saying that "deer hunting will continue to thrive in Georgia, despite this current discovery." "Working together with our hunters and all Georgians, we will manage CWD and maintain healthy deer herds," he added...
First Positive Case of Chronic Wasting Disease Confirmed in Georgia January 23, 2025 Georgia DNR News
... The Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) Wildlife Resources Division (WRD) has confirmed through the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories that a hunter-harvested deer sampled for routine surveillance in Lanier County has tested positive for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). This is the first case of CWD detected in Georgia. The sample was taken from a two-and-a-half-year-old male white-tailed deer harvested on private property..,
DNR reassessing ways to slow the spread of chronic wasting disease January 20, 2025 Minnesota, Post-Bulletin
... first found in this region in 2010 when an old doe, shot near Pine Island, tested positive. Sharpshooters were hired ... To be successful, sharpshooters need to have access to 20 to 40 percent of the land, but only about 10 percent of landowners in the three DPAs agreed ..,
A legislative fight over chronic wasting disease January 15, 2025 North Dakota, Jamestown Sun
... a very vocal faction of the hunting community ... insist that chronic wasting disease is a hoax, or at the very least an exaggerated threat, and they want state officials stripped of the ability to regulate bait hunting..,
Lawmakers propose use of drones to assist Tennessee hunters in locating deer January 16, 2025 fox17 on MSN
... HB0175/SB0130 ... creates rules to allow the use of unmanned aircraft such as drones " solely for the purpose of locating and recovering a deer that has been wounded or is reasonably believed to have been wounded while a person is lawfully engaged in hunting." ...
DNR reports Mecosta County’s first CWD-positive wild deer January 15, 2025 Michigan DNR News
... in Millbrook Township ,,, The buck was harvested near confirmed cases in adjacent Montcalm County Mecosta is now the 14th Michigan county where chronic wasting disease has been identified in the wild deer population ..,
Jonesville man cited for violating chronic wasting disease regulations January 14, 2025 Louisiana, Alexandria KALB-TV on MSN.com
... cited for two counts of illegally importing a cervid carcass into Louisiana... two mule deer that were harvested in Colorado and brought back into Louisiana without following the CWD guidelines for importation...
CWD found in Elk Hunt Area 98 January 15, 2025 Wyoming Game and Fish News
... an adult female elk from Elk Hunt Area 98. The elk was found dead on the Scab Creek feedground at the end of December. Department personnel investigated and removed the carcass after sampling the elk..,
North Dakota bill targets Game and Fish Department's CWD management efforts January 14, 2025 Yahoo
... HB 1236 would require that the department use license and application fees only for programs and administration not related to CWD...
First Chronic Wasting Disease Deer Case Reported in Manitowoc County January 13, 2025 Wisconsin, Seehafer News
... The test result is from a wild 1-year-old buck harvested on November 23rd on private property. The deer was harvested within 10 miles of both Calumet and Sheboygan Counties..,
National Deer Association Oppose Bill Aiming to Combat Chronic Wasting Disease January 13, 2025 Indiana, Eagle Radio 99.3 FM WSCH
... Under the bill ... The department would: collect DNA samples to establish a baseline of average genetic codon markers and genomic breeding values for native, free-range Indiana white-tailed deer;
establish a testing location for DNA samples;
create and operate a captive breeding program for native free-range Indiana white-tailed deer that identifies deer genetically resistant to CWD ...
Chronic wasting disease continued to spread and increase in prevalence in 2024 January 10, 2025 Wisconsin, Yahoo! Sports
... 64 of the state's 72 counties as "CWD-affected." And 10.4% of the 16,321 deer tested in 2024 were CWD-positive, the highest statewide rate since surveillance for the fatal deer disease began in 1999... in Richland County, where 33% of 1,301 samples were CWD-positive ...the percent positive CWD detections were 5.3% in 2013, 1.5% in 2008, 0.8% in 2003 and 0.1% ...
State officials: Chronic Wasting Disease found in Concordia Parish deer January 4, 2025 Louisiana, NewsBreak
... According to the USDA, a 2-year-old female deer tested positive for CWD on Dec. 11, 2025, at the Concordia Parish farm. The animal is one of a hunting herd of 60 deer that have since been quarantined..,
Arizona Game and Fish asks hunters to help keep CWD at bay December 31, 2024 Williams-Grand Canyon News
... Department officials have not detected any cases of CWD in the 750-plus deer (mule and white-tailed) and elk that have been harvested by hunters and voluntarily submitted for testing this fall. Game and Fish has been testing for the presence of the disease in Arizona since 1998. While CWD has been found in the neighboring states of Utah, New Mexico and Colorado, the disease has not been detected in Arizona..,
Chronic Wasting Disease found in Medina County deer breeding facility August 2, 2024 Texas, TPWD News
... It’s the fifth facility where CWD has been detected in the county... The disease was found during postmortem testing of a white-tailed deer... CWD has an incubation period that can span years, so the first indication of the disease in a herd is often found through routine surveillance testing rather than observed clinical signs..,
Public hearing on proposed deer regulations set for January 23 January 9, 2024 Massachusetts, Mass.gov
... While CWD has not been detected in Massachusetts, it is highly contagious and has spread rapidly across North America over the last two decades. Proposed regulation changes: Sunset all remaining captive cervid operations under propagator and ed ucation permits...
Chronic Wasting Disease Update January 2, 2025 Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry
... Following the analysis of movement records from the positive case of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in Jefferson Davis Parish and subsequent testing, the Louisiana Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (LADDL) has confirmed to the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry’s (LDAF) Office of the State Veterinarian three positive cases of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). The cases were confirmed at a deer farm in each of the following parishes: Tangipahoa Parish, St. Landry, and Concordia Parish..,
Soaring CWD numbers in southeastern Minnesota prompt DNR to stop culling deer January 1, 2025 Minnesota, Star Tribune on MSN
... now that CWD prevalence in the southeast part of the state has doubled in one year, to 5% or more, the benefit of off-season culling is considered too meager to justify the expense... the agency will end its deployment of sharpshooters in all Driftless Area disease management zones ..,
