CWD testing helps manage disease

Arkansas deer hunters submitted a record 8,759 samples from deer killed during the 2022-23 Arkansas deer hunting season to be checked for chronic wasting disease.

Dr. Jennifer Ballard, wildlife veterinarian for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, said there’s still a lot of work to be done in monitoring and slowing the spread of the disease in Arkansas.

Ballard recently partnered with the National Deer Association to increase awareness of chronic wasting disease and the importance of having harvested deer tested. The article “Five Reasons to get

Your Deer Tested for CWD” gave a concise message to a national audience to help increase awareness about having deer tested, even if the deer isn’t harvested in an area where chronic wasting disease has been confirmed.

“If there are resources available to get your deer tested, results from areas where the disease has not been found are just as valuable as those where a few detections have occurred,” Ballard said. “They may even be more valuable because they give us greater confidence in knowing where the disease does and does not occur.”

Management of the disease is constantly evolving, but one constant in nearly all wildlife diseases is that management strategies are most effective when they are implemented early. That means remaining vigilant.

“When something like CWD is first found in an area, hunter participation in testing their harvest and reporting sick deer is high, but wildlife management is a long-term prospect,” Ballard said. “One pattern we see is that hunters become complacent about having their deer tested once CWD has been in the area for a while, but surveillance is really critical to informing deer management in the presence of this disease.