SAN ANTONIO – Two new cases of chronic wasting disease in captive deer have been validated by state testing labs. The test includes the first confirmed from a live test tonsillar biopsy sample. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and Texas Animal Health Commission said they are continuing to conduct an epidemiological investigation into these new cases.
One case involves a 3 1/2-year-old captive raised white-tailed doe that was born, raised and died at a deer breeding facility in Medina County. The deer died of natural causes but the disease had not previously been found at that facility.
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The other new case involves a 2 1/2-year-old captive white-tailed buck in the Uvalde-Medina County deer breeding facility that was the source of a CWD positive white-tailed buck harvested by a hunter from a release site on the same ranch.
With these new confirmations, 10 white-tailed deer in or originating from deer breeding facilities have been confirmed positive for CWD.
The first case of CWD was detected last June.
The disease was first recognized in 1967 in captive mule deer in Colorado. CWD has also been documented in captive and/or free-ranging deer in 24 states and 2 Canadian provinces. In Texas, the disease was first discovered in 2012 in free-ranging mule deer along a remote area of the Hueco Mountains near the Texas-New Mexico border, and last summer was detected in two, separate captive white-tailed deer breeding facilities in Medina and Lavaca counties.