Printer-friendlyStatus of Chronic Wasting Disease in NY
To date, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has received confirmation of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) from two wild white-tailed deer sampled in central New York.
The first positive result in a wild deer was announced on April 27, 2005 and came from a yearling white-tailed deer sampled from the Town of Verona, Oneida County. The second positive result is from a three year old doe, located within a mile of the location where the initial positive result was detected. These are the first known occurrences of CWD in wild deer in New York State.
The sample tissues were tested at the State's Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at Cornell University. The two CWD positive samples were then sent to the National Veterinary Services Laboratory (NVSL) in Ames, Iowa for verification. Results from NVSL have confirmed CWD in both samples.
Background Information on CWD Surveillance and Testing in New York
In April of 2002, the DEC initiated a program to collect tissue samples to test for CWD in wild white-tailed deer populations throughout New York State. A sampling scheme was developed to determine the number of deer needed from each county in order to detect CWD if it was present in the state. The sampling program required the DEC to collect from 800 to 1,000 samples each year with more samples collected from counties with larger deer populations and fewer samples collected from counties with less deer. These sample were submitted to United States Department of Agriculture approved laboratories for testing.
On April 8, 2005, the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets (DAM) completed testing of the captive white-tailed deer herds in New York. CWD was detected in five deer from two captive herds in Oneida County. After CWD was discovered in these two captive herds, DEC established a Containment Area around the CWD positive samples and, along with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services program, implemented an intensive monitoring program on the local wild deer population. The first phase of this intensive monitoring was completed on April 30, 2005. This effort resulted in 290 samples of wild deer from Oneida County, two from neighboring Madison County, and 25 wild deer from the Town of Arietta, Hamilton County. CWD was detected in two wild white-tailed deer collected during this intensive sampling effort.
The second phase of the intensive monitoring program involves testing of roadkill deer and all hunter-killed in the Oneida-Madison County CWD Containment Area. Additionally, DEC has increased CWD surveillance outside the Containment Area and annually tests about 5,000 deer from throughout the State.
The distribution of samples collected since 2002 are depicted on the map below. Each shaded polygon represents a town or city in New York State.
Distribution of Samples Collected Statewide for the Chronic Wasting Disease Surveillance Project