SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources is asking all deer hunters to bring their harvested deer to check stations and have them tested for chronic wasting disease. The various stations across the state during this fall’s hunts will be staffed with Utah Division of Wildlife Resources biologists ready to test the animals for the disease.
Chronic wasting disease in Utah
Chronic wasting disease is a relatively rare transmissible disease first found in Utah in 2002. It affects the nervous systems of deer, elk and moose.
The disease is caused by a misfolded protein accumulates in the animal’s brain and spinal cord the same type of protein that causes “mad cow disease” in cows and scrapie in sheep.
DWR biologists said infected animals develop brain lesions, become emaciated, appear listless and have droopy ears. They may also salivate excessively and will eventually die. Deer in the early stages of chronic wasting disease appear healthy. The only way to know if a harvested deer is infected is to get it tested.
Transmission may occur directly through contact with an infected animal or indirectly through environmental contamination.
“We take the presence of CWD in Utah seriously and will continue to do extensive monitoring to stay on top of the disease and its prevalence in the state,” DWR State Wildlife Veterinarian Ginger Stout said. “Recent surveys have shown that 78% of hunters have never had their deer tested for CWD. We are strongly encouraging hunters to stop at our check stations if they harvest a deer within the sampling hunting units this year. The data collected through this is crucial in helping us stay on top of CWD monitoring in Utah in order to maintain healthy deer populations into the future.”
While the Centers for Disease Control says the risk of transmission from animals to humans is considered extremely low, they recommend not consuming meat from animals infected with CWD.
As of Sept. 2, DWR found 356 deer and 10 elk that tested positive for CWD in the state. The disease is found throughout northeastern, southeastern and some parts of central Utah. Visit the DWR website to see which hunting units have had positive CWD cases.
Important CWD sampling information
Hunters who harvest deer should go to one of the check stations and receive a free CWD test if they harvested a deer on one of the units being sampled this year. Here are the hunting units the DWR is requesting samples from this year:
- Beaver, East
- Beaver, West
- Box Elder
- Cache
- Cedar/Stansbury
- East Canyon
- Fillmore
- Fillmore, Oak Creek
- La Sal, La Sal Mtns
- La Sal, Dolores Triangle
- Nine Mile
- Ogden
- Oquirrh/Tintic
- Pine Valley
- Southwest Desert
- Wasatch Mtns, East
- Wasatch Mtns, West
Hunters are required to submit a sample from deer harvested in the limited-entry any-legal-weapon buck deer hunts in the La Sal, Castle Valley and the La Sal, Moab Valley areas. DWR will contact hunters in those units with more details about the mandatory sampling process.
Hunters will need to leave about 6 inches of the animal’s neck and windpipe attached below the jaw so that DWR employees can remove the lymph nodes for sampling. DWR employees will also ask the hunter a few questions, including the location where the animal was harvested. The entire process will only take a few minutes.
Those who harvests an animal in a nontarget sampling unit, but still wanr to have their deer or elk tested for CWD, should take the head of the animal to the Utah Veterinary Diagnostic Lab in Logan or Spanish Fork and pay a $30 testing fee. Deer and elk must be older than one year of age to be eligible for testing.
Check station details
Check here to see where the CWD monitoring check stations will be located this year.