Georgia First Positive Case of Chronic Wasting Disease Confirmed

Georgia First Positive Case of Chronic Wasting Disease Confirmed

First Positive Case of Chronic Wasting Disease Confirmed In Georgia

Social Circle, GA Thursday, January 23, 2025, 14:30 pm The Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) Wildlife Resources Division (WRD) has confirmed through the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories that a hunter-harvested deer sampled for routine surveillance in Lanier County has tested positive for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). This is the first case of CWD detected in Georgia. The sample was taken from a two-and-a-half-year-old male white-tailed deer harvested on private property. Immediately following the positive confirmation, WRD staff implemented the CWD Response Plan and are taking additional samples from the area.

“I want to assure our hunters that deer hunting will continue to thrive in Georgia, despite this current discovery," said Walter Rabon, Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. “Working together with our hunters and all Georgians, we will manage CWD and maintain healthy deer herds.” 

What is Being Done? The DNR CWD Response Plan is in effect and a CWD Management Area is established. The CWD Management Area includes the county where the positive sample was found and any county that touches a 5-mile radius around the location of the positive sample. The current CWD Management Area includes Lanier and Berrien counties. 

The critical next step is to determine the geographic extent and prevalence rate in that Management Area (i.e., how far it has spread and what percent of deer have CWD). The Department will do that with landowner cooperation through “cluster sampling” in the immediate area. 

What is CWD? CWD was first discovered in 1967 in Fort Collins, Colorado. CWD is a fatal neurological disease of deer, elk, and moose caused by infectious, misfolded proteins called prions. There are no current treatments or preventative vaccines.

CWD in deer, elk ,and/or moose has been reported in 36 states and 3 Canadian provinces: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming as well as Canadian provinces Alberta, Quebec, and Saskatchewan.

There is no known transmission of CWD to humans. However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that hunters harvesting a deer, elk, or moose from an area where CWD is known to be present have their animal tested for CWD prior to consuming the meat and do not consume the meat if the animal tests positive. How You Can Help Prevent Spread

Don’t move live deer. Moving live deer is the greatest risk for introducing CWD to new areas. Dispose of carcasses properly and don’t bring whole carcasses into Georgia from out of state or move whole carcasses outside the CWD Management Area. Any carcass parts you don’t intend to consume should be left on the property the deer was killed, sent to a landfill, or buried. Report sick or abnormal deer to your nearest WRD Game Management Office. The Georgia DNR with its partners – Georgia Department of Agriculture and the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study – will continue to update the public as more information becomes available.

For more information on Chronic Wasting Disease, visit https://georgiawildlife.com/CWD. 

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Media Contact: Kaitlin Goode, kaitlin.goode@dnr.ga.gov, 912-346-8280

https://gadnr.org/first-positive-case-chronic-wasting-disease-confirmed-georgia

First Positive Case of Chronic Wasting Disease Confirmed In Georgia 

Thursday, January 23, 2025, 14:30 pm 

The sample was taken from a two-and-a-half-year-old male white-tailed deer harvested on private property.

https://gadnr.org/first-positive-case-chronic-wasting-disease-confirmed-georgia

Georgia CWD

https://gadnr.org/cwd

Chronic Wasting Disease Response Plan - Georgia Department of Natural Resources

• Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) affects members of the deer family.

• Moving live deer and infected carcass parts are the biggest risk factors for introducing CWD into Georgia.

• CWD is caused by a defective protein, called a prion, that spreads among deer through bodily fluids.

• CWD is always fatal and there is currently no vaccine or treatment.

• The incubation period is very long, 18 to 24 months from exposure to death. One deer can infect many others and contaminate the environment with prions.

• Once it is well established in an area (spread beyond a 1-mile radius), eradication is essentially impossible.

Only if discovered early, when still localized with a low prevalence rate is there any hope of eradication.

ONGOING SURVEILLANCE EFFORTS

• Since 2002, DNR has tested ~20,000 deer. DNR currently collects about 1,800 samples per year.

• DNR uses a risk-based surveillance system designed for early detection.

Sampling intensity per county depends on risk factors (e.g. distance to captive deer facilities, taxidermists, processors; past sampling effort, and distance to known CWD areas.

INITIAL RESPONSE

Goal: Detect CWD early, determine the prevalence and geographic extent, eradicate if possible or minimize spread, and keep prevalence in the population low.

If CWD is discovered in Georgia (or within 5 miles of the state line)

• Implement communications plan and designate members of the multi-agency response team operating under common Incident Command System structure.

• Establish a CWD Management Area (CMA) that includes each county within a 5-mile radius around the positive sample and increase sampling.

• Sample intensively within a 1-mile radius to determine prevalence and geographic extent.

• Collect samples from road-killed deer and hunter-harvested deer voluntarily dropped at self-serve freezers placed around the CMA. Sampling efforts may also include cluster sampling, issuance of special permits, and crop damage permits.

• Cooperate with GA Dept of Agriculture to identify and sample high-fence enclosures in the CMA.

• Restrictions on carcass disposal will be reviewed. Hunters, taxidermists, and processors will be advised how to best dispose of carcasses.

LONG-TERM CWD MANAGEMENT

• Once initial prevalence and geographic extent are assessed, CMAs will be adjusted accordingly.

• DNR will use a cluster sampling strategy to keep CWD prevalence low within the area. The disease appears to form clusters of positives within family groups. DNR will work with landowners to identify family groups for sampling around each positive deer. This focused approach identifies individual deer most likely to be positive for harvest without negatively affecting the population.

• Maintain healthy deer populations. Maintaining good relationships with landowners and a sustainably huntable population of deer is crucial to disease management. Significant deer population reductions are not part of DNR’s management actions.

• Age structure management. Older deer are more likely to have contracted CWD and can spread it to other deer. Managing for younger deer also helps keep prevalence of CWD low. Antler restrictions that promote older age classes may be rescinded from counties within a CMA.

• Feeding/baiting guidelines. The following actions may reduce risk:

o Broadcast the feed over large areas (500+ square feet), avoid piling it

o Avoid trough and gravity feeders

o Move feeding locations periodically to avoid buildup of excrement in soil

o Limit feeding to when you are actively hunting, avoid feeding out of season

o Baiting may be used as a tool for cluster sampling in CWD management areas, WRD will provide more specific guidance directly to hunters in those areas.

Update January 25

https://georgiawildlife.com/sites/default/files/wrd/pdf/CWD/CWD%20Response%20Plan%202025.pdf

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 07, 2013

Georgia House Bill 1043 and Chronic Wasting Disease CWD 

From: Terry S. Singeltary Sr. 

Sent: Saturday, September 07, 2013 12:33 PM 

To: jon.burns@house.ga.gov Cc: stephen.allison@house.ga.gov ; jimmy.pruett@house.ga.gov ; sharon.beasley-teague@house.ga.gov ; rbruce5347@aol.com ; pam.dickerson@house.ga.gov ; emory.dunahoo@house.ga.gov ; earl@ehrhart.4emm.com ; david.knight@house.ga.gov ; tommccall@bellsouth.net ; john.meadows@house.ga.gov ; jay.roberts@house.ga.gov ; jason.shaw@house.ga.gov ; jason.spencer@house.ga.gov ; al.williams@house.ga.gov 

Subject: Georgia House Bill 1043 and Chronic Wasting Disease CWD 

Greetings Honorable Representatives of the House, Game, Fish, & Parks, 

I wish to submit some recent science about chronic wasting disease cwd from the Prion2013 congressional abstracts. I lost my mother to hvCJD ‘confirmed’, and have been following the mad cow follies for almost 16 years daily. sadly, cwd is just another part of those follies. I have studied and kept up with these follies daily for almost 16 years, as a layperson. I believe that when officials are making decisions, they need all the scientific information available to make sound decisions. many times this does not happen due to the industries involved and politics and greed there from. So, I send this science on the cwd tse prion disease in good faith. 

TO date, with the limited CWD testing in Georgia, CWD has not been detected. does not mean it is not already there. BUT, if you approve Bill 1043, the chances of CWD being introduced into your state goes up greatly. Inactivation of the TSE Prion disease Chronic Wasting Disease CWD, and other TSE prion disease, these TSE prions know no borders. these TSE prions know no age restrictions. The TSE prion disease survives ashing to 600 degrees celsius, that’s around 1112 degrees farenheit. you cannot cook the TSE prion disease out of meat. you can take the ash and mix it with saline and inject that ash into a mouse, and the mouse will go down with TSE. Prion Infected Meat-and-Bone Meal Is Still Infectious after Biodiesel Production as well. the TSE prion agent also survives Simulated Wastewater Treatment Processes. IN fact, you should also know that the TSE Prion agent will survive in the environment for years, if not decades. you can bury it and it will not go away. The TSE agent is capable of infected your water table i.e. Detection of protease-resistant cervid prion protein in water from a CWD-endemic area. it’s not your ordinary pathogen you can just cook it out and be done with. that’s what’s so worrisome about Iatrogenic mode of transmission, a simple autoclave will not kill this TSE prion agent. Snip…

https://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2013/09/georgia-house-bill-1043-and-chronic.html