State wildlife officials announced Aug. 1 that they have confirmed Washington’s first case of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in an adult female white-tailed deer that was found dead in the Fairwood area of north Spokane.

The finding has triggered the state’s CWD emergency response plan, and although the deer was located in Game Management Unit (GMU) 124, nearly 400 miles east of Port Townsend, the discovery has implications for Port Townsend’s deer population.

“When wildlife congregate, that can cause diseases to spread,” said Matt Blankenship, assistant regional wildlife program manager for Region 6. “This is true for CWD, Bluetongue disease and all wildlife diseases. We don’t encourage folks to feed deer because this encourages deer to congregate.”

Because of the easy abundance of food and the lack of predators, urban areas such as Port Townsend often have higher deer populations than rural areas, Blankenship said, and high species density can increase the risk and rate of transmission among the population.

In 2016 a group of concerned Port Townsend residents conducted an independent deer census. Their focus, at the time, was understanding and reducing the size of the population to reduce the potential for human-deer conflicts. In an informal survey, they counted 230 deer in a half hour, but that count did not cover the entire city. Lacking numbers from the state, it is difficult to ascertain whether that number has increased or decreased. Some city officials at the time said they thought that number could have been an undercount of about 50%.

Blankenship said his agency does not have deer population estimates for East Jefferson County.

“We don’t have a density count of deer,” Blankenship said. “We usually infer numbers from GMUs and hunter harvest days. We don’t have density estimates at that small of a scale.”

Anecdotally, many areas residents often report scores of daily or weekly deer sightings.

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is fatal in deer and there is no cure. The disease is caused by mutated proteins which can be transmitted between deer and elk through their saliva, urine, and potentially feces and bodily fluids. Most animals with CWD appear normal until the end stages of the disease when they show signs of weight loss, lethargy, drooping ears, excessive salivation and urination, and loss of fear of people. 

Chronic wasting disease can only be confirmed through testing of lymph nodes or brain tissue. The lymph nodes of the Spokane deer that tested positive were submitted to the Washington Animal Disease Laboratory at Washington State University in July with a batch of other samples for testing. Scientists with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) say while CWD moves from animal to animal, humans also contribute to the spread. That includes encouraging deer or other animals to feed together by leaving out food, or by transporting live or dead animals.

Chronic wasting disease has been documented in wild or captive cervids in 34 other states and four Canadian provinces. The WDFW has been testing for CWD in Washington since 1995. Efforts were increased starting in 2021 in eastern Washington due to the proximity of known cases in western Montana at that time. WDFW has been proactively preparing for the possibility of finding the disease in Washington and has a Chronic Wasting Disease Management Plan that guides how the department will move forward with responding to this confirmation and managing the spread of CWD. 

“With the spread of CWD across the country and recent detections in adjacent states and provinces, WDFW has proactively conducted surveillance in this area since 2021,” said Eric Gardner, WDFW’s wildlife program director. “We detected this case because of the surveillance program, and we are immediately reviewing our Management Plan and the circumstances of this detection. We will announce additional management actions soon.” 

CWD can spread to other deer, elk, and moose, and over time, can reduce cervid populations if it becomes widespread. To understand more about this outbreak, WDFW staff are preparing to collect tissue samples from deer, elk, and moose within the initial response area. Members of the public can help by reporting cervids that appear sick and by not feeding wildlife. Feeding draws animals together where disease can spread quickly.  

To date there are no confirmed cases of CWD transmission from wildlife to domestic animals or from cervids to other wild ungulate species. There is also no scientific evidence of CWD being transmitted from cervids to humans. Research conducted in 2022 and 2023 by National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists supports this. According to the NIH website, “A new study of prion diseases, using a human cerebral organoid model, suggests there is a substantial species barrier preventing transmission of chronic wasting disease (CWD) from cervids—deer, elk and moose—to people.”  

 To minimize risk, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends against eating meat from an animal that has tested positive for CWD. Hunters who harvest elk, deer, or moose in the affected area, or anyone who salvages a road-killed animal, can take additional steps to maximize food safety. The CDC and WDFW websites offer guidance for hunters or salvagers regarding how to handle and process meat.

Testing of deer, elk, and moose will be critical this upcoming hunting season in order to detect additional cases and better understand the distribution and prevalence of the disease in Washington. Hunters will be notified about changes to testing and carcass transportation regulations as those details are developed. Information on how to have harvested animals tested, and more information on CWD is on the WDFW website.