Hunting News

False alarm: CWD is not found in NY

False alarm: CWD is not found in NY

By New York Department of Environmental Conservation

Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) has not been found in a suspected positive sample from an adult female deer killed by a bowhunter in Chautauqua County and submitted for testing in routine surveillance efforts.

An initial screening test by the Animal Health Diagnostic Center at Cornell University suggested the deer as a possible CWD case. Additional tissue samples were immediately sent to the National Veterinary Services Lab (NVSL) in Ames, Iowa, for additional definitive testing.

The Department of Environmental Conservation conducts confirmatory testing on all suspected CWD samples. Final diagnosis from NVSL indicates CWD was not detected. Although CWD poses a serious threat to New York's white-tailed deer and moose populations, there are no known cases of CWD.

In an abundance of caution, the Department will continue strategic CWD surveillance in Chautauqua County and around the state as deer hunting season continues.

The potential discovery of CWD triggered DEC and the Department of Agriculture and Markets to immediately initiate the emergency response plan prior to opening the regular deer hunting season Nov. 17.

If CWD had been confirmed, DEC was prepared to establish a CWD containment area in the location where the deer was taken to determine the prevalence and distribution of the disease and to prevent the spread of CWD into other parts of New York. DEC would have enacted regulations requiring hunters to register and provide tissue samples of all deer harvested within the containment area and to prohibit movement of deer carcasses and high-risk parts (brain, eyes, spinal cord, tonsils, intestinal tract, spleen, and retropharyngeal lymph nodes) out of the containment area.

In addition, the Department of Agriculture and Markets was prepared to work with all the deer farm owners in the area to monitor herds for compliance with the State's CWD prevention program, to control animal movement from the farms, and to inspect the deer farms' fences and structures for secure containment.

Because CWD was not detected, such measures are unnecessary.

More information about CWD is available on the DEC' website.

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