Georgia DNR confirms first chronic wasting disease detection; response plan activated

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources confirmed this week that a hunter-harvested white-tailed deer tested positive for chronic wasting disease, or CWD, after confirmation from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Iowa. The deer was taken in late November near the Lanier–Berrien County line, and DNR officials said they immediately activated the agency’s CWD response plan.

Commissioner (Georgia Department of Natural Resources) told the committee the positive result came from routine surveillance and that the department has collected samples statewide since 2002. “I want to first and foremost assure you and our hunters that deer hunting will continue to thrive in this state,” the Commissioner said, while noting the department is moving into an intensive, localized response.

Dr. Tina Johansson, assistant chief of game management in DNR’s Wildlife Resources Division, described CWD as a neurological disease caused by a misfolded prion protein that affects members of the deer family. “It has about an 18 to a 30 month incubation period in deer,” Johansson said. “Once infected, that deer will die. It is 100 percent fatal.” She added that infected animals appear healthy for most of the incubation period but can shed infectious prions in saliva, urine and feces and that prions can contaminate the environment.

DNR described immediate steps already underway in the CWD management area — defined as counties within a five-mile radius of the harvest site. The agency said staff notified the hunter and landowner, contacted nearby landowners and crop-damage permit holders, and reached out to 11 local meat processors and taxidermists; seven additional samples were recovered from processors. DNR said it intends to collect roughly 20–30 targeted samples from the immediate vicinity to assess prevalence and geographic spread.

Johansson described the department’s “cluster sampling” approach as a focused, property-level effort to target deer most likely to have had direct contact with the positive animal rather than broad herd reductions. She cited Illinois and Wisconsin as real-world examples of different long-term outcomes where localized, sustained removal and cooperation kept prevalence lower in Illinois, while Wisconsin saw increasing prevalence over time.

DNR officials said they will expand surveillance in the immediate area and set up self-serve freezer drop-off sites so hunters who process their own deer can leave skull caps or heads for testing. “We will be allowing, in fact, encouraging all of our hunters within the CMA to drop their heads off for testing,” Johansson said. The department currently absorbs testing costs and estimates about $25 per sample in routine batch testing.

On public outreach, DNR issued a press release, held a local press conference in Tifton, scheduled in-person meetings in the affected counties and a virtual meeting, and updated its website and FAQ materials. Officials said public affairs staff have been fielding questions from hunters and landowners and that they will continue to communicate directly with stakeholders.

Regarding human health, Johansson said no human cases of CWD have been documented and that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “does not appear to affect people” based on available evidence, but the CDC recommends having deer harvested in CWD-positive areas tested before eating the meat. DNR reiterated that guidance, advising hunters in the management area to test harvested deer and promising to notify hunters of results.

Department officials emphasized the long-term nature of managing CWD, the role of landowners and hunters as partners, and the limits of elimination once the disease becomes established. They said maintaining prevalence below 5 percent in an impacted area is the management goal, and that ongoing surveillance will prioritize high-value samples such as adult bucks, road kills and animals taken under crop-damage permits.

The department said samples from the local response were expected to reach their laboratory targets within about a week if fieldwork continued at current pace. DNR officials said they would continue to update the public as additional test results and surveillance data become available.