Chronic Wasting Disease Found In Texas, Endangering Entire Deer Herd

Chronic Wasting Disease has been found in a captive white-tailed deer in Medina County, Texas.

Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC) and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) jumped into planning how to deal with the fatal disease after Texas’ first case of Chronic Wasting Disease was found in a captive deer.

Chronic Wasting Disease is highly contagious among white-tailed deer. It’s spread through contact with bodily fluids – both direct and indirect. A deer can catch the disease just by ingesting plants that have incorporated microscopic aspects of an infected animal’s waste through the soil.

As deadly as the disease is to deer, it doesn’t seem to affect humans. As previously reported by the Inquisitr, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged hunters to be careful in May when Michigan officials found one of their deer infected with Chronic Wasting disease.

“Hunters and others should avoid eating meat from deer and elk that look sick or that test positive for CWD. Hunters who harvest deer or elk from known CWD-positive areas may wish to consider having the animal tested for CWD before consuming the meat… Persons involved in field-dressing carcasses should wear gloves, bone-out the meat from the animal, and minimize handling of the brain and spinal cord tissues.”

According to the Houston Chronicle, Chronic Wasting Disease is a kind of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, which is much like bovine spongiform encephalopathy (better known as Mad Cow Disease).

It was first acknowledged as an issue in 1967, but diagnosing it is not simple. In order to get a quick and reliable result on a test looking for the disease, the deer in question needs its brain stem removed. It is not a test that an animal can survive. There is another test that does not require the death of the animal, but due to the fact that it takes many months of retesting to get an accurate result, the test isn’t used often.

Using the longer running, more humane test could endanger the entire herd. Chronic Wasting Disease can remain infectious in affected areas for over a decade.

Deer in captivity are used to fuel the $2.1 billion hunting industry in Texas. Loss of an entire deer farm could significantly harm the state’s economy.

Texas officials have put a prohibition in place, preventing the transfer or release of captive deer until they are able to find out where the infection started.

[Image courtesy of QDMA Forums]