WDFW Discusses CWD Discovery in Spokane Deer, Next Steps

It’s unclear how chronic wasting disease arrived in Washington, but state wildlife officials are now mobilizing to better understand how widespread the always-fatal deer family disease might be after last Thursday’s announcement that a dead whitetail doe found just north of Spokane tested positive for it.

“Because it’s so hard to detect the disease in animals, we’re really going to be asking for the help of Washington’s communities,” Donny Martorello, WDFW Wildlife Program chief scientist told reporters at a 40-minute news conference early this afternoon, “and a big part of that is going to be submitting samples to help us understand the distribution of this disease and the prevalence of this disease. We do believe we’ve caught it early with our sampling that we’ve done. Samples will also help us inform our management options are to help reduce the impacts of the disease on deer, elk and moose populations in Washington.”

Along with also informing other state offices as well as federal, tribal and local officials last week about the discovery of the first confirmed case of CWD in the state, WDFW has opened up its 2021 plan for dealing with the disease, an unwanted but inevitable development and one that hasn’t caught the agency by surprise.

“With the detection, now we are implementing chapter 5 of our chronic wasting disease plan … It’s the initial emergency response chapter, and we are also following that chapter and forming an incident command system structure,” Martorello said. “In the next few days, our incident management team – part of that ICS – and policy leads will be meeting to discuss the near-term actions that are in front of us, and we’ll be announcing any of those decisions soon.”

While lethal removal is discussed in the plan – and has been an active part of Idaho’s treatment of an outbreak south of Lewiston – WDFW hasn’t gotten that far, Martorello said, but staffers will be thinking about how to contain it.

Asked how CWD could have showed up in Fairwood – a residential area on the banks of the Little Spokane River just outside the northern city limits of Spokane – when the nearest known source populations are 100 miles away in Libby, Montana, and extreme southeast British Columbia, Martorello gave a three-word answer.

“We don’t know,” he said.

The disease can be spread naturally by an infected animal passing it to another through contact with bodily fluids such as snot, saliva, blood, pee and poop, or through the dumping of infected carcasses or parts, or use of doe-in-estrous urines or scents. Shed prions – the malformed proteins that carry the disease – can persist in the environment for years, making CWD a zombie deer disease in more ways than one.

The Fairwood doe was called “skinny,” but that wasn’t necessarily an indication of how long it may have been infected and could have just been due to winter conditions. CWD doesn’t present until late in the disease.

The dead deer was called in by a property owner and WDFW came out February 28 to remove the carcass and take a sample, according to Martorello. Because the state diagnostic lab does testing in 90-sample batches, it wasn’t until just recently that enough had been collected to run them.

Going forward, WDFW will be “strongly encouraging” hunters and roadkill salvagers to submit samples, and both groups were advised to “anticipate” sampling requirements, though the regional scope of that has yet to be determined. While the CWD plan speaks to collecting samples in a 10-mile radius – or 314-square-mile area – around a detection, war gaming the plan and looking at other states’ efforts have led WDFW to consider looking further than that.

In response to a question from the Spokane Spokesman-Review about why WDFW thinks they caught CWD early, Melia Devivo, agency ungulate researcher, pointed to ongoing surveillance programs using hunter-harvested deer, opportunities to get salvaged animals tested and opportunistic sampling of roadkilled animals. She estimated the prevalence was 2 to 3 percent of the population, but further testing would refine that.

The area the infected deer was found is off limits to shooting, per county ordinances, making it “a little more challenging” to collect samples, but hunting in the region opens in 27 days when bowmen will take the field, followed by muzzeloaders and riflemen in seasons that stretch into December, providing plenty of opportunity for sportsmen to assist in determining how widespread the problem is. The region also sees lots of roadkill salvaging.

“If it is allowed to spread and become very prevalent in populations, we know from other states that it does have population impacts and you do see a decline in those populations,” Devivo warned.

Even before the discovery of CWD next door in fall 2021, WDFW had boosted its efforts to collect samples. That September, it announced an increased number of game check stations in Northeast Washington and said it was asking those who hunted whitetail in eight game management units there to stop by for sampling.

In 2022, it added a 24-hour kiosk in Colville for submitting samples and further increased the number of game checks across the Eastside.

Last fall, WDFW and BHA teamed up to offer 100 multiseason tags for those who got their animal tested, and during the last weekend of November 2023’s late whitetail rifle hunt, a record number of hunters stopped by check stations.

For years, Washington and many other states have only allowed hunters to bring back certain parts of their animals from CWD states and provinces to limit the risk of introducing the disease in new areas.

WDFW says there is no scientific evidence that CWD can be passed from deer, elk or moose to people, but to further reduce the risk, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends not eating the meat of infected animals. Hunters and salvagers who submit samples of their animal can use WDFW’s WILD ID system or their permit number to check on testing results. If positive, WDFW will contact them to talk about proper disposal, Devivo said.

“We’re taking this very, very seriously,” Martorello summarized to reporters. He said that as unwanted as the news was, CWD was here all the same. He said that the Fish and Wildlife Commission would be briefed at its meeting later this week.