A free-ranging deer in far north Bexar County has tested positive for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) and Texas Parks & Wildlife Department (TPWD) will schedule community meetings this summer to discuss disease mitigation actions.
TPWD also will implement disease-containment measures and provide recommendations on mitigating disease transmission in the city of Hollywood Park, where the deer was captured in late January as part of an effort to reduce overabundant deer populations.
CWD is a fatal neurological disease found in certain cervids including deer, elk, moose and other members of the deer family.
Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory (TVMDL) in College Station analyzed postmortem samples, and the National Veterinary Services Laboratory (NVSL) in Ames, Iowa, provided a “CWD-positive” confirmation, TPWD said in an online statement.
There are no confirmed cases of CWD in Comal County’s whitetail deer population.
CWD has an incubation period that can span years, meaning the first indication in a herd may likely come through testing rather than observed clinical signs. Early detection and proactive monitoring improve the state’s response time to a disease outbreak and can greatly reduce the risk of further disease spread.
To date, there are no known cases where humans have been infected with CWD through consumption of venison, but recent research suggests that this route of CWD transmission to humans should not be ruled out. As a precaution, it is recommended that hunters test harvested cervid species for CWD and not consume the meat of infected animals.
