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Fish, Wildlife & Parks details local CWD surveillance, reports urban hotspots and 12 positives
Summary
Sam Martinez, the Libby area wildlife biologist, told the council FWP has detected 12 chronic wasting disease positives in town this trapping year, described urban hotspot removals and urged residents not to feed wildlife; public meetings are scheduled for deeper discussion.
Sam Martinez, the Fish, Wildlife & Parks wildlife biologist for the Libby area, told the council the agency has pursued urban deer trapping and broader harvest sampling since CWD was first detected locally in 2019.
"Chronic wasting disease, it's a fatal neurologic disease. There's no treatment. There's no cure for it," Martinez said, summarizing the disease and explaining why FWP is focused on reducing urban deer densities and monitoring prevalence.
Martinez described urban hotspot removals in town, noting the most recent trapping effort produced 12 positives detected in town and that two concentration areas—near Cedar/wastewater treatment and near the high school—accounted for many of those detections. He said the program distributes harvested deer carcasses that test negative to residents and that FWP is increasing hunter sampling outside town to measure prevalence in the surrounding management zone.
He encouraged residents to stop feeding wildlife, to avoid leaving attractants that increase local deer congregation, and said FWP would hold two public meetings (the following day at noon and 6 p.m. in the Ponderosa room) featuring the state wildlife disease ecologist for deeper discussion.
Why it matters: CWD is fatal and has no cure. Local urban hotspots and detection counts influence FWP’s management actions (trapping, hunter sampling, outreach) and can affect hunting opportunities, local wildlife abundance, and public guidance about carcass disposal.
Next steps: FWP will continue surveillance, run urban hotspot removals where needed, expand hunter sampling in surrounding units, and host public meetings to explain the science and local management options.
