By Jessica Domel
Multimedia Reporter

State wildlife and animal health officials are working to protect Texas deer while also trying to determine how an 8.5-year-old free-ranging mule deer near Lubbock contracted Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD).

CWD is a fatal, neurological disease that affects deer, elk, moose and other members of the cervid family. It commonly leads to altered behavior in infected animals because of microscopic changes in the brain of infected animals.

The infected mule deer was found east of Lubbock in the Buffalo Springs area. After exhibiting symptoms of CWD, the deer was humanely euthanized and tested for the disease.

“There’s still a lot of unknowns right now,” Mitch Lockwood, Big Game Program director for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD), said. “This was just discovered, and it’s the only case of Chronic Wasting Disease that we know about in that area.”

As a result of the discovery, TPWD and Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC) are working together to determine if CWD has been established in the environment where the deer had been browsing.

“Obviously, we would hope that it’s not,” Lockwood said. “To try and determine that, we would likely establish some CWD zones in that immediate area. That would be potentially a containment zone and a surveillance zone that would surround that containment zone.”

Containment zones are established were the disease has been detected. Surveillance zones act as a buffer where surveillance is done to provide assurance the disease hasn’t spread outside of the containment zone.

Containment and surveillance zones have not been delineated for the area yet. When they are established, they come with rules for landowners and hunters to ensure CWD does not spread to unaffected areas of Texas.

“There would be testing requirements for any white-tailed deer, mule deer or elk that would be harvested within the zones. There would also be some restrictions on the movement of white-tailed deer, mule deer or elk to or from those zones,” Lockwood said in an interview with the Texas Farm Bureau Radio Network. “I’m talking about live animals.”

There would also be some restriction on the movement of deer and elk carcasses.

“It basically means they would need to be quartered before they could leave the zone,” Lockwood said.

There are currently CWD zones in the northwestern Panhandle, in the Trans-Pecos region, in South Central Texas in Medina County and in Kimble and Val Verde counties.

TPWD is trying to determine how a mule deer with CWD ended up in Lubbock County.

“We have some situations where it was quite apparent CWD was spread through the movement of live deer in a trailer,” Lockwood said. “We also have some situations where it’s quite obvious that the deer walked in naturally across the border from another state where the disease is already established.”

CWD could have also been introduced to the deer through infected carcass parts of a hunter-harvested deer that were discarded.

CWD is spread through the natural movements and transportation of infected animals and carcass parts.

According to TAHC, prions are shed from infected animals in saliva, urine, blood, soft antler material, feces or from the decomposition of an infected animal.

The prions then stay in that environment and can infect susceptible animals.

“CWD is definitely something that we all need to be concerned about. CWD is a disease that some people really haven’t recognized as a serious threat because it doesn’t result in mass die-offs,” Lockwood said.

The problem is, animals infected with CWD may not show outward symptoms of the disease until years after they’re initially infected—all the while spreading prions that could infect other cervids.

“CWD is an insidious disease,” Lockwood said. “It acts slowly on a population, but the problem with this disease is if it’s left unmanaged, it will not go away. If CWD gets established in the environment and it is not managed, the prevalence of the disease will only increase.”

There are no known treatments for CWD.

“There’s no way at this time, that we’re aware of, to eliminate this disease from the environment where it’s become established,” Lockwood said. “So at that point, we just have to manage the disease. Early detection of CWD is critical to successful containment and possibly elimination.”

That’s why TPWD and TAHC implement containment and surveillance zones around areas where CWD-positive deer and elk have been found.

“The two main objectives (of the zones) is to help us learn more about the prevalence and the geographic extent of the disease, but then the other objective is to help contain the disease, to keep it from spreading beyond that area.” Lockwood said.

The deer population in the area where the infected mule deer was found is relatively low.

Landowners in the area who see any deer that look sick, emancipated, skinny, are wandering aimlessly or are circling, are encouraged to contact TPWD.

Other symptoms for CWD include: tremors, lack of coordination, blank facial expressions, excessive salivation, loss of appetite, excessive thirst and urination, listlessness, teeth grinding, abnormal head posture and drooping ears.

Some of those symptoms are also indicative of other animal diseases.

“Quite frankly, most deer that have CWD aren’t even exhibiting those symptoms until they’re near the final stages and their death, but in the event people see deer that do not look healthy in their immediate area, we would encourage them to contact the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department so we can have those deer tested,” Lockwood said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends hunters have any deer that is harvested within a CWD zone tested for CWD. If it tests positive, the venison should not be consumed.

“We are quick to remind folks that there is no evidence that people can get CWD, but out of an abundance of caution, we make that recommendation,” Lockwood said.

A TAHC fact sheet on CWD is available here.

Maps of the CWD zones, and information for hunters, is available in the Outdoor Annual.