Texas Parks and Wildlife to deploy prion‑detection devices, posts CWD dashboard for Hollywood Park

Texas Parks and Wildlife staff told the Hollywood Park Deer Committee that the agency plans to deploy Priogen environmental sampling devices on city and utility easements within Hollywood Park and that a new online dashboard will show local Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) sampling and test results.

The announcement came during the committee’s regular meeting after staff described how the metal Priogen devices will be attached to trees or utility poles and baited with a beet root mineral block to encourage deer to lick the device; technicians will swab deployed devices four times a year and send the swabs for laboratory testing. “Usually, when we turn in a sample into Priagen, it’s a pretty fast turnaround. Usually, we get results between 10 and 14 days,” said Megan Hahn, Parks and Wildlife. Staff said the goal is to deploy devices by November, subject to scheduling and site confirmation.

Committee members were told the agency is coordinating placement to avoid private yards and will use city‑owned land and utility easements where possible. Joseph, Parks and Wildlife staff member, and Clint, Parks and Wildlife staff member, accompanied staff on a survey of potential sites and reported a fairly even distribution of suitable trees and poles across public properties. Staff said marked vehicles will be used when collecting swabs and that the agency will notify local contacts, including Sergeant Bass, before sampling visits.

Texas Parks and Wildlife also highlighted a new CWD dashboard on the agency website that shows historical and current testing records, mapped sampling locations, and progress toward sampling goals for deer management units. Megan Hahn said the dashboard lets the public “zoom into the nearest 3‑mile gradient and find how many samples have been taken,” and that Bexar County functions as a single deer management unit in the system. Staff noted that many current samples in the region come from Bexar County roadkill, Camp Bullis and Government Canyon, and that some planned hunts and sampling tied to Camp Bullis were delayed because personnel were furloughed during a government shutdown.

The agency also announced a staffing update: Anna Curtin has been hired to fill the San Antonio urban biologist vacancy left by Judith Green’s retirement; staff said Curtin will be introduced at a future meeting. The committee asked staff to alert members by email or at future meetings when devices are deployed and when samples are collected and tested.

Why this matters: environmental sampling and public dashboards change how residents can track CWD surveillance in their area and may affect local deer management decisions if positive tests are returned. The committee emphasized that deployment will use public property or easements and not require technicians to enter private yards.