Washington confirms first case of chronic wasting disease

Washington has its first case of chronic wasting disease.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife announced Thursday that it confirmed the state’s first case of the always-fatal brain disease in a white-tailed deer found dead in the Fairwood area of north Spokane.

The detection makes Washington the latest domino to fall in the disease’s slow progression throughout North America. A total of 35 states and four Canadian provinces have detected the disease, which affects elk, deer and moose.

WDFW said in its news release that CWD could have major impacts on wildlife populations if it spreads widely.

The agency plans to collect more tissue samples from animals in the area where the deer was found to learn more about the scope of the outbreak. It is also working with landowners, conservationists and other government agencies to respond to the detection.

Eric Gardner, WDFW’s wildlife program director, said in a news release that the agency is reviewing the circumstances of the detection and its chronic wasting disease management plan, which lays out how the agency can respond to the detection.

Gardner said WDFW “will announce additional management actions soon.”

WDFW declined to make anyone available for an interview on Thursday. A press conference is planned for Monday.

The news is disappointing for hunters. Josh Wilund, the co-chair of the Washington chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, said in a statement that the first case is unfortunate, but something that was expected to happen at some point.

“The only path forward is to create greater public awareness and get animals tested,” Wilund said.

CWD attacks the nervous system of deer, elk and moose. The disease is not known to affect humans, but health officials advise against eating meat from infected animals.

Misfolded proteins known as prions cause the disease. Infected animals shed them, and healthy animals can either pick them up through rubbing up against an infected animal or on the landscape, where the prions remain for years.

Once in a healthy animal, the prions cause other proteins to misfold, ultimately damaging the nervous system, according to the CWD Alliance. It can lead to deer or elk showing erratic behavior or becoming emaciated, though symptoms usually aren’t apparent until the animal is in the late stages of the disease.

Infected animals are often killed by hunters, predators or vehicle collisions before the disease finishes them off.

High prevalence rates can cause problems in deer or elk herds by limiting the number of animals that reach adulthood and reproduce, according to the CWD Alliance.

CWD was first identified in Colorado in the 1960s and has since popped up in wild and captive populations all over the continent. Montana detected its first case in wild animals in 2017, and Idaho found its first case in 2021.

Just this year, California, Indiana and British Columbia detected their first cases.

Washington has been testing animals for CWD since 1995. Testing was increased in Eastern Washington in 2021 after Idaho found its first case. Last year, in an effort to encourage more hunters to submit test samples, WDFW offered a special drawing for a multiseason deer tag to all hunters who submitted samples.

From July 2023 to July 2024, Washington tested samples from 796 animals for the disease, all of them turning up negative.

The sample that tested positive was part of a batch of 23 that were submitted to the Washington Animal Disease Laboratory at Washington State University last month.

There is no known cure. Wildlife officials combat the disease with measures meant to prevent its spread. States have prohibited moving carcasses or importing animal parts.

They have also held special hunts to cull herds cut population densities, which is meant to limit the chances for the disease to become more widely spread.

In Idaho, wildlife officials have held special hunts to cull deer from the Slate Creek drainage near Whitebird, where the disease was first discovered in 2021.

WDFW’s management plan calls for establishing a response team and defining an initial response area with a radius of about 10 miles around the site of a detection.

That’s the area where the agency would consider actions to reduce population densities and focus testing efforts. Lymph node and brain tissue samples can only be gathered from dead animals. WDFW does gather samples from roadkill and other dead animals they find, but the agency prefers to use public hunting to gather samples.

In its news release, the agency said testing hunter-killed animals “will be critical this upcoming hunting season in order to detect additional cases and better understand the distribution and prevalence of the disease in Washington.”

Details on changes to testing and carcass transport rules are still being developed.