

Chronic Wasting Disease
FAQ
What if I am hunting in a unit, state, or province not listed in the CWD proclamation?
What common sense precautions should hunters take when handling or processing deer and elk?
- Avoid sick animals. Do not shoot, handle, or consume any animal that appears sick; contact your local wildlife agency personnel.
- Wear rubber/latex gloves when field dressing carcasses.
- Minimize handling the brain, spinal cord, eyes, spleen, tonsils and lymph nodes of any deer, moose or elk. Normal field dressing coupled with boning out a carcass will remove most, if not all, of these body parts. Cutting away all fatty tissue will remove remaining lymph nodes.
- Thoroughly wash hands, knives and other tools used to field dress the animal. Disinfect tools by soaking them in a solution of 50 percent unscented household bleach and 50 percent water for an hour. Allow them to air dry.
- Avoid contact with any animal that appears sick and do not consume.
- Bones and unprocessed remains should be disposed of through burial, landfill or incineration.
What is chronic wasting disease?
Where is it found?
The origin of CWD is unknown and it may never be possible to definitively determine how or when CWD arose. It was first diagnosed in a Colorado elk research facility in 1967 and a few years later in a similar Wyoming research facility. It was later discovered in wild elk and deer near those facilities in Colorado and Wyoming.
The known distribution of CWD in wild deer, elk, and moose includes Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan.
CWD also has been found in farmed elk or deer herds in Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Alberta, Quebec, Saskatchewan, and South Korea.
CWD has also been found in wild moose and reindeer in Scandinavia.
CWD was first detected in North Dakota in a mule deer buck taken in the fall of 2009 in the southwestern part of the state. See http://www.cwd-info.org for more information.
How common is it?
What wildlife species are affected by CWD?
What are the signs of CWD?
How is CWD transmitted?
What is the progression of the disease?
What causes CWD?
How do you test for CWD?
Is there a treatment for infected deer and elk?
Is CWD transmissible to humans?
The prions are known to accumulate in certain parts of the infected animal -- brain, spinal cord, eyes, spleen, meat and lymph nodes. Consumption of these parts is not recommended. Furthermore, health officials advise caution. Hunters are encouraged not to consume meat from animals known to be infected. Hunters should take common sense precautions when field dressing and processing deer or elk taken in areas where CWD has been diagnosed.
Is CWD transmissible to domestic livestock?
What should you do if you see a deer or elk that looks sick, emaciated or lethargic?
Farmed deer and elk: What is the ND Department of Agriculture, State Board Of Animal Health’s role in CWD?
If I shoot a deer in a unit where there are carcass transportation restrictions in place, how do I tag the meat for transport?
Note: See current CWD proclamation for restrictions.
Game and Fish would prefer that you take the tagged head with you out of the field and bring it to one of the drop-off stations in the unit so it could be tested.
If that’s not convenient, tag the deer as required, then take two photographs using a cellphone with location, date and time stamp turned on. Take one photograph of the entire animal at the kill site with tag attached, and a second photograph of a closeup of the tag so that the tag information is readable. If a hunter leaves the head in the field at the kill site, after taking photos and saving them, the ear or antler with the tag attached must be cut off and accompany the meat or carcass while in transport. The photographs of the tagged deer must be shown to any game warden or other law enforcement officer upon request.
Some people claim that prions are “spontaneous” and are not passed via contact between individuals or picked up from the environment. Is this true?
Not all prion diseases are the same- some are inherited, some arise spontaneously, and some are transmissible between individuals. The prion that causes CWD is transmitted from animal to animal. Numerous, good scientific studies have established this. The CWD prion can be spread from infected to non-infected animals through direct contact or through contamination of shared resources or environments. Some of the dozens of research studies include:
- Miller MW et al. 2004. Environmental sources of prion transmission in mule deer. Emerging Infectious Diseases. 10:1003-1006.
- Mathiason CK et al. 2009. Infectious prions in pre-clinical deer and transmission of chronic wasting disease solely by environmental exposure. PLoS ONE 4(6): e5916.
- Plummer IH et al. 2017. Temporal patterns of chronic wasting disease prion excretion in three cervid species. Journal of General Virology. 98:1932-1942.
Game and Fish is prohibiting hunting big game over bait in areas with CWD. Why does Game and Fish also not prohibit food plots? Deer also congregate in farm fields. Why doesn’t Game and Fish do something about that?
It is impossible to eliminate the risk of CWD. Instead, we have to consider what we can do to reduce risk, keeping in mind that we only have control of a few things that occur on the landscape. Both have risk, but a bait pile has more risk for disease spread because it concentrates deer in a smaller area. It is reasonable to point out that deer will congregate in a farm field, around a silage pile, etc., but we as hunters can only control what we do. By prohibiting hunting over bait, we reduce the number, duration, and intensity of congregations. This does not solve the problem of CWD, but at a landscape level, it has meaningful effect in reducing the risk of spreading CWD within an area.
Why doesn’t Game and Fish just prohibit hunting over bait statewide before CWD spreads across the entire state?
A statewide ban would be a more proactive option for reducing the risk of CWD spread within an area compared to a regional ban. However, the Department must balance the risk of CWD with the wishes of hunters outside CWD positive areas. Previous discussions have concluded that there is not enough public support to implement a statewide baiting ban.
Some claim that CWD has always been present in our deer herds. They feel that just because we’re now testing for it and finding it, that wildlife managers are overreacting, and CWD won’t really have a major impact on our deer populations. Is this true?
All evidence of the last few decades indicates that this is not true. CWD follows a classic epidemiologic pattern where it shows up in an area, and slowly spreads from that “hotspot” while also increasing in prevalence within that population. The last 10-20 years of disease surveillance across the country has established this.
The spread of CWD within a population is slow and insidious. It can take a long time to reach a threshold, above which, actual impacts are observed. What has emerged in the last few years is that CWD-related mortality is now recognized as the major cause of population declines in some herds. We aren’t at that threshold in North Dakota yet and our aim is to never get there. Some research papers documenting this:
- Edmunds DR et al. 2016. Chronic wasting disease drives population decline of white-tailed deer. PLoS ONE. 11(8): e0161127.
- Monello RJ et al. 2014. Survival and population growth of a free-ranging elk population with a long history of exposure to chronic wasting disease. The Journal of Wildlife Management. 78:214-223.
- DeVivo MT et al. 2017. Endemic chronic wasting disease causes mule deer population decline in Wyoming. PLoS ONE. 12(10):e0186512.
Are we trying to keep deer populations low in areas with CWD, and will we ever try to exterminate all deer in these areas?
Maintaining a lower deer density is one approach to slowing the spread of CWD within an area and reducing the likelihood of an infected deer dispersing and introducing CWD to a new area. In order to do this, Game and Fish has issued more licenses in 3F2 than otherwise would have been the case over the past several years. Hunter success has remained steady in that unit, but we need hunters to help maintain lower densities.
Game and Fish has and will continue to use lessons learned from other states, as well as the best available scientific evidence to make decisions on how to address the issue of CWD in North Dakota. There are few examples where depopulation of a wild deer herd was feasible or effective, and we have no current plans to take this approach. However, wildlife management is dynamic. If a new scenario was to occur that would potentially warrant depopulation in order to save the rest of the herd, all management options would be considered.