More than 2140 samples from deer and other cervids submitted by hunters were reviewed by the NDG&F for CWD after the fall 2023 hunting seasons.  In total, 11 positive samples were identified, all from areas which had previous detections for the prion-based disease. Simonson Photo.

By Nick Simonson

The North Dakota Game & Fish Department’s (NDG&F) survey of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) – a prion-based illness of the brain and nervous system which always results in the fatality of the animals it infects – in the state netted 11 positive samples in fall of 2023. With an intensified focus on the southeastern portion of the state, the agency had no positive hits in the samples from that region and noted that those animals which did test positive came from firearms units 3A1 and 3A2 in the northwest, and 3E1, 3E2 and 3F2 in the southwest, where CWD had been detected in previous years, according to Charlie Bahnson, DVM, NDG&F Wildlife Veterinarian.

“We know that our harvest success and our deer herd is down in general for a couple reasons, but most recently from a just a really terrible winter, a really severe winter last year.  We do expect that infected deer are going to be some of the first deer to drop off the back of the herd under stresses like that.  I would think to some degree that winter probably selectively removed some of our positive animals, but that’s probably just a bit of a blip. In a year-to-year, long-term trend, there might be annual little blips, but overall, prevalence [of CWD in the state] is still fairly stable,” Bahnson states.

Some of that stability is due to hunters helping submit harvested deer for study. In total, NDG&F agents processed approximately 2,140 samples submitted by hunters, either through head collection sites, drop-off points, and self-sample kits offered up by the agency last autumn.  Of those, over 1700 were whitetail deer, and 370 were mule deer, along with approximately 70 elk and a handful of moose harvested during the fall of 2023.  The latter process, by which hunters request and receive a kit to hold vital portions of the animal’s nervous system and return them for scientific review by the agency, is one Bahnson hopes will help stem the spread of CWD in the state in the years to come.

“About 150 of our samples came from self-sampling kits where hunters collect their own samples and send them in.  That’s a really great tool primarily because it allows us to focus our manpower and resources in one part of the state, but it will allow testing for anybody who wants a test result statewide,” Bahnson explains, adding the department will expand that option in future seasons.

While the number of firearms deer tags were down in 2023 by more than 10,000, year-over-year, and the season’s harvest percentage was off against the long-term average, hunters still likely served as the agency’s greatest asset in not only herd management through the harvest of a portion of the population, but also in the monitoring of CWD.  Through the efforts of just being afield, tagging a deer, and then submitting its head for sampling, veterinarians, biologists, and scientists like Bahnson are better able to understand the prevalence of CWD in the herd and what it bodes for the future of hunting in the state.

“Continue to go hunting!  Hunters are our best tool in managing healthy herds at an appropriate level.  Especially if we’re conducting surveillance in the unit where you’re at, please do consider submitting a sample or getting your animal tested.  Beyond that, one big thing from this year was the disposal requirement.  If you’re going to move your animal out of the unit where it was harvested, please make sure what’s left from the processing ends up in a landfill.  Then finally, we’ve got baiting restrictions in some places, please just do be aware of where those are in place,” Bahnson encourages hunters in their efforts to help watch for and slow the spread of CWD.

Next year, the agency will focus its surveillance efforts on the northeastern quadrant of the state, an area adjacent to the Canadian border where just a few miles north this autumn a positive CWD sample was detected in a harvested deer taken near Winkler, Manitoba, the first of its kind in the region.  This was in addition to three more detections near Climax, Minn., where two years ago a hunter-harvested whitetail also tested positive for CWD. 

Simonson is the lead writer and editor of Dakota Edge Outdoors.