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Education; Hunting; Law-Enforcement; Wildlife; Wildlife-Disease-Management
FRANKFORT, Ky. (May 2, 2025) — The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources has completed its Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) surveillance and testing for the 2024-2025 deer season. Testing of 9,204 samples statewide found no new cases of the disease in wild deer.
Since 2002, Kentucky Fish and Wildlife has tested more than 60,000 deer and elk, with hunters providing most of the tissue samples for testing. Outside the fall hunting season, the department also collects and tests samples from roadkill and sick or found dead deer reported to the department throughout the year.
"We are grateful for the continued support of Kentucky's deer hunters, whose participation makes this possible," said Joe McDermott, deer program coordinator for Kentucky Fish and Wildlife. "Their contributions play a key role in monitoring the health of the state’s deer population and tracking the spread of CWD.”
To date, CWD has been detected in Kentucky twice: in a wild deer in Ballard County in November 2023, and more recently in October 2024 in a captive deer from a permitted captive deer facility in Breckinridge County. Just over 100 deer farms or high-fence shooting facilities operate in Kentucky. Captive deer and elk are legally designated as livestock in the commonwealth and are thus regulated primarily by the Kentucky Department of Agriculture.
A significant portion of the 2024-2025 deer season samples tested - 4,483 - were gathered from two multi-county CWD surveillance zones. These surveillance zones were established as a result of the two detections of the disease in Kentucky.
Chronic Wasting Disease samples were submitted by hunters via a variety of pathways, including CWD Sample Drop-off sites, CWD Sample Mail-in Kits, partnering taxidermists and processors and mandatory check stations operated by Kentucky Fish and Wildlife staff. Testing for the disease was free, and hunters can access their results online. If a hunter-harvested deer tested positive for CWD, the hunter would have been contacted upon confirmation of the disease.
Chronic Wasting Disease is a fatal neurological disease affecting the cervid family, including deer, elk and moose. The disease not only affects individual deer; it causes long-term effects in deer herd health. It can also adversely affect hunting participation; hunting is vital for keeping deer numbers in check on a large scale.
Kentucky’s wild deer population is estimated at around a million animals, which largely underpins the $2 billion in economic benefit afforded by hunting to the commonwealth each year. More than 300,000 hunters pursue white-tailed deer and elk in Kentucky annually, depending on this important source of protein for themselves and their families. Deer hunters also donate thousands of deer to Kentucky Hunters for the Hungry, which in turn supplies more than a half-million protein servings to shelters and food banks across the state each year. Chronic Wasting Disease thus poses a significant threat to Kentucky’s wild deer and elk herds, our culture and food supply, and our economy.
While CWD is not known to be transmissible to humans, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that hunters avoid consuming meat from deer that test positive for the disease as a precaution. Kentucky Fish and Wildlife also advises against consuming meat from animals that appear sick or unhealthy.
Plans for 2025-2026 CWD surveillance and monitoring will be presented to the Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Commission at an upcoming meeting. For more information on CWD visit the Chronic Wasting Disease webpage on the agency’s website (fw.ky.gov).
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