North Dakota Game and Fish Department reports 17 positives

Over the 2024 sample season, the North Dakota Game and Fish Department tested 1,456 animals for chronic wasting disease. Game & Fish verified 17 deer tested positive for CWD; two of these were clinically confirmed by diagnostic investigation and 15 were taken by hunters.

According to a press release from Game and Fish, "positive cases came from units 3A1 (seven mule deer), 3E1 (one mule deer), 3E2 (one mule deer), 3F2 (four mule deer and two whitetails), 3B2 (one mule deer), and 3B3 (one whitetail). CWD was not previously detected in units 3B2 or 3B3."

In areas where CWD surveillance was focused, sampling initiatives fell short of the 10% target in units.

Game and Fish will advise CWD management going forward using their 2024 surveillance data. Declared annually by proclamation are rules pertaining to CWD.

Rising infection rates of CWD, a deadly illness of deer, moose, and elk, will have long-term effects on population numbers on the landscape.

What is CWD and how does it spread?

Affecting deer family members, chronic wasting illness is a 100 percent deadly neurological wildlife disease.

Even though more and more hunters are discovering CWD in their backyards, many still find great uncertainty about it. Most of this uncertainty relates to the tiny particles called prion (pronounced PREE-ons.) that cause CWD. Though most people link transmissible diseases with viruses and bacteria, prion are neither.

Malformed proteins gathered in the brain and disseminated throughout an animal's body cause nerve tissue to become permeable and destroyed. Close physical contact and urine, feces, and saliva allow infected animals to then transmit the disease.

Other prion illnesses in humans are Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease; in cattle, "Mad Cow" disease; in sheep and goats, scrapie.