The Pennsylvania Game Commission recently released an update on Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), stating they have found more deer carrying CWD this year than the one before. CWD is an always fatal, neurological disease affecting cervids, including deer and elk. There is no vaccine and no cure for animals that get it.

In 2022, the Game Commission collected 11,000 CWD samples from deer. Hunter harvest samples made up the bulk of those, with more than 7,000. To date a total of more than 400 wild deer tested positive for CWD, 243 of them were harvested by hunters. 

Pennsylvania’s CWD Section Supervisor Andrea Korman said, “CWD surveillance is crucial to managing the deer. CWD is a serious threat to deer and elk. Knowing where the disease is allows us to focus our efforts to keep more deer from being infected.”

Landowners and hunters who hunt in or near areas where deer tested positive of CWD, are offered additional opportunities to harvest deer that may have come into contact with an infected deer. These opportunities include both special regulations and extended hunting seasons. The Game Commission continues to work with these landowners after the hunting seasons to harvest additional deer surrounding the initial CWD detection areas. 

Korman said, “The results of this year’s efforts around recent detections were encouraging. Landowners and hunters were supportive and eager to help protect deer in their area. This increased sampling close to the detections found no new CWD positive deer.”

As with previous years, most of the deer that tested positive for CWD in the 2022-23 hunting season came from Disease Management Area 2 located in southcentral Pennsylvania. This area, where CWD is considered established within the deer population, has produced nearly 90% of Pennsylvania’s CWD positives since the disease first was detected here in 2012. 

Korman also stated, “Based on the number of CWD positive animals we continue to detect in this area, it’s clear that CWD is a persistent problem and will require long-term management. People in Pennsylvania believe that responding to wildlife disease is one of the Game Commission’s most important roles.” 

Korman also said, a critical part of this research is testing deer that have been ear tagged or collared. If you find or harvest the deer that is tagged, please call the number on the ear tags so samples can be collected. 

Korman concluded, “Because of the continued spread of CWD, we increased the antlerless allocations in WMU’s where CWD has been detected for this upcoming hunting season. We will be closely monitoring the harvest to see if that increased allocation was sufficient to slow the spread of the disease and if not, other options will be considered including extending the seasons to create more opportunities for hunters to harvest deer in these areas.”  

Game Commission Executive Director Bryan Burhans said, “Hunters are passionate about deer in Pennsylvania, and they will do just about anything to protect them. In this case, we need them to do what they do best, Hunt More.”

The PA Game Commission still has no solution or cure to eliminate CWD. Their strategy is to help stop the spread of CWD, and that is by decreasing the deer herd. And that includes shooting many healthy deer. I guess their reasoning is if they get rid of deer, then they don’t have to worry or deal with CWD!