wherecanItakemydeer202106
What to Do with Chronic Wasting Disease in Deer
LEWISBURG – Chronic Wasting Disease has already been found in deer in the Valley and its starting to spread…that’s the latest word from Pennsylvania Game Commission Warden Cadet Brooke Hargenrader. She says the CWD Deer Management Area (DMA) now starts in the area of Route 45 in Union County and goes south.
“So it’s mostly right now at the southern end of the county and has been expanding. What we can do to prevent that is have people turn in those heads to see if we’re getting any positives. It’s really just a preventative measure at this point,” she said.
Snyder County is included in the DMA, and the disease, which eats brain tissue, has already been confirmed in the county.
To test a deer, Hargenrader says there are many locations to get deer heads tested, including in Middleburg, at the Sunbury Boat Launch and others, “There’s Laurelton Bald Eagle State Forest at the office, Beaver Springs, and there’s one in Richfield too. They can go online, there’s also an interactive map where they can look up all the headbin locations.”
Hargenrader says deer may not exhibit symptoms and still have the disease, but there are some symptoms to look for, “You’re looking at drooling, they call it wasting disease of course, so skinniness, drinking too much, wobbliness.”
Hargenrader says CWD has not yet been linked to humans, but it’s still highly recommended for hunters to have their deer’s head checked.
You can hear her full interview on an upcoming WKOK Sunrise program.
Click HERE for the Game Commission’s website and CWD maps.
