Washington entering second hunting season with CWD

Washington’s second hunting season in its chronic wasting disease era begins Monday, when archery deer hunters can hit the woods for the early season.

So far, the data suggests the disease isn’t widespread.

A total of four deer tested positive for the disease last year – three from game management unit 124 in Spokane County and one from game managment unit 117 in Pend Oreille County.

Hunter Westacott, WDFW’s CWD surveillance program coordinator, said both were a fraction of the samples gathered from that area over the course of a year, and that prevalence rates in both units is less than one percent.

No level of CWD is good, but Westacott likes seeing a zero before a decimal point when it comes to prevalence rates.

“The lower, the better,” Westacott said. “The fact that they’re under one percent is good.”

Keeping it there is about all widlife officials can try to do at this point, and WDFW has enacted a suite of new rules that call on hunters to help prevent CWD from spreading.

The disease is caused by microscopic proteins called prions, which remain infectious for an extended period of time. The disease is not known to impact humans, though health officials advise against eating infected meat. But biologists consider it a major threat to the long term viability of wildlife populations.

This spring, WDFW signed off on permanent rules barring hunters from transporting anything other than deboned meat and finished taxidermy out of the 10-county eastern region, the thinking being that carcass materials from infected animals could introduce the disease to new places. Importing carcasses from other states was already illegal.

The agency also banned hunting over bait statewide, along with feeding wildlife. Both practices would draw animals to a single area, which biologists fear could make the disease spread faster.

Tracking the spread depends on robust testing. Shortly after the first detection last year, WDFW ordered mandatory testing in three game management units close to the site of the initial detection. That change coupled with an apparent rise in voluntary testing led to an explosion in sample numbers last year.

Between July 2024 and the end of this past June, more than 2,100 samples were tested for CWD. The year before, WDFW got 796 samples.

Some came from salvaged animals, residents calling in dead animals and roadkill gathered by the department of transportation. But more than half came from animals killed by hunters.

There were enough samples from the area around the initial detection to give WDFW high confidence in their prevalence rate in that area, known as a surveillance unit. The three positives came out of a total of 676 samples, giving a prevalence rate of .44%.

Fewer samples came from the area of Pend Oreille County where the other positive case was found, but it was the only one of 133 samples from unit 117 to turn up positive.

Biologists expect that mandating testing across the region – meaning from any game management unit that starts with a one – will result in another explosion in test numbers.

In the early season, it will be on hunters to either gather and submit the sample on their own or visit one of the agency’s kiosks – designated spots where hunters can leave the head of their harvest in either a bin or a freezer for WDFW to gather samples later.

Westacott said the agency put up 17 of the kiosks last year, and that a total of 449 samples were gathered from them. WDFW plans to add about 10 more kiosks this year.

WDFW will also again gather samples at certain offices, such as the regional office in Spokane Valley. Later this fall, during modern firearm hunting seasons, the agency will collect samples at check stations.

The Kalispel Tribe’s Department of Natural Resources is pitching in again, too. Mike Lithgow, a Kalispel Tribe spokesperson, said they plan to have three CWD kiosks ready by the end of next week, and that they’ll run a check station in conjunction with WDFW later in the fall.

A webmap on WDFW’s website shows all the places where samples can be taken.

Requiring testing in areas that don’t have the disease already may seem like a burden to some hunters. For biologists, it’s about making sure they find the disease early.

Westacott added that in a few parts of the eastern region, the disease is already present just across the state border – infected deer turned up both in far North Idaho and British Columbia last year, and a herd north of Riggins, Idaho, has had the disease for several years.

Finding it early gives wildlife managers more options for dealing with the disease.

“We’re trying to protect the long term health of our deer population,” Westacott said.

Dan Wilson, a Spokane hunter and member of the Washington chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, said hunters need to embrace the new rules as an opportunity to help wildlife managers tamp down the disease.

“It’s a paradigm shift for everyone, but it’s not unprecedented,” Wilson said. “It behooves us as conservationists to do our part to protect these herds.”