Game and Fish department to test local hunt areas for CWD

Posted 9/19/24

The Big Horn Basin has the highest reported prevelance rates of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in Wyoming.

Game and Fish Department hunt areas 121 to 123 — home to the Shoshone River herd …

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Game and Fish department to test local hunt areas for CWD

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The Big Horn Basin has the highest reported prevelance rates of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in Wyoming.

Game and Fish Department hunt areas 121 to 123 — home to the Shoshone River herd between Cody and Lovell — have prevalance rates for the fatal disease in adult mule deer bucks between the ages of 2 and 10 of 54%. The Greybull River herd’s prevalance rate is about 48%.

“It seems like [Hunt Area] 121 tends to have a higher prevalence than 122 and 123,” said Cody Regional Wildlife Biologist Austin Wieseler in an interview with the Tribune.

Department officials plan to make testing deer for the disease in the Shoshone River herd a priority in the upcoming hunting season, he said.

“We try to maintain making one or two deer or elk herds a priority in the region at a time,” he said.

Department biologists rotate around the region, making it somewhat difficult to get a good snapshot across all herds in the Cody Region at any given time.

Surveillance in the local area is on a volunteer basis, however, there are several areas in the state that require mandatory testing.

“Continued monitoring of CWD is important to help Game and Fish understand the impacts of the disease on deer and elk,” said Breanna Ball in a recent press release.

Samples also give the department information to inform future management actions, such as license types offered, license quotas, seasons and future disease monitoring protocols.

CWD has been detected in most deer hunt areas throughout the state and prevalance of the disease is about one of every two deer in parts of Park and Big Horn counties. Chronic wasting disease is a fatal, neurological illness occurring in North American cervids (members of the deer family), including white-tailed deer, mule deer, elk and moose.

Since its discovery in 1967, CWD has spread geographically and increased in prevalence locally. CWD is contagious; it can be transmitted freely within and among cervid populations. No treatments or vaccines are currently available.

CWD is transmitted directly through animal-to-animal contact, and indirectly through contact with objects or environmental contamination with infectious material (including saliva, urine, feces and carcasses of CWD-infected animals).

“There's been a lot of work in looking at what sort of management works best when it comes to combating CWD,” Wieseler said, pointing out that high prevalance rates often lead to indirect environmental transmission.

There's direct and indirect transmission, he said. Direct transmission is animal to animal, whether that's saliva, urine, feces or other bodily fluids. Indirect transmission happens when prions get established within the environment itself. Prions in the environment, once established, can live in the environment for years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, the disease has yet to be found to infect livestock or humans.

“If CWD could spread to people, it would most likely be by eating meat from an infected animal, the center reported.

A CDC survey of U.S. residents showed nearly one in five said they had hunted deer or elk.

Wieseler said there are three primary management strategies for CWD centered around artificially reducing concentrations where deer aren’t naturally spread across the landscape.

“’We’re trying to reduce densities so there's less direct transmission, and then keeping deer spread out [results] in less transmission between them and the environment,” Wieseler said.

The Cody Regional Office is a good option for area hunters to have their harvests tested. In Powell, the Northwest College biology students, led by Associate Professor of Biology and Coordinator of Biological Sciences Eric Atkinson, are going to be on board again this year for coordinating CWD samples tests from their head drop station.

Mandatory testing hunt areas are 88 and 89 in Natrona County, 22 in Natrona and Converse County, 70 in Carbon County, and 157 and 171 in Fremont County between Dubois to just east of Riverton. Additional deer hunt areas targeted for CWD surveillance this year are 17, 18, 23, 26, 35-37, 39, 40, 82, 84, 92, 94, 100, 121-123 (in Powell area), 128, 130, 131, 134, 135, 138-146, 148, 150-156, 160 and 164.

Popular elk hunting areas in northwest Wyoming targeted for CWD surveillance include hunt areas 55, 56, 58-61 and 66. Other hunt areas targeted are 8-12, 70, 71, 75, 77, 78, 80-96, 110 and 125. 

Hunters outside of this year’s surveillance areas can still submit a sample for testing. Results from CWD testing are available online within three weeks. The only way for hunters to get the results of their deer or elk CWD test will be to check online through the Game and Fish website. Hunters can expedite results within 10 working days for a $40 fee; contact the Wyoming State Veterinary Lab in Laramie at (307) 766-9925 for more information.

You can also learn how to take a sample by watching a how-to video on the Game and Fish website and submit it alongside the completed CWD data sheet. Personnel from the department can take a sample at any open game check station, Game and Fish headquarters or regional offices from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. 

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