
Two cases of chronic wasting disease (CWD) have been confirmed in southwestern Iowa, KMALand radio reports.
One of the hunter-harvested deer was found in Fremont County, about 2.5 miles west of Percival, near the Missouri River. The other was taken northwest of Avoca in Pottawattamie County, north of Freemont County, near the border with Nebraska.
The Fremont county deer was located more than 8 miles from a positive case identified in 2021, while the Pottawattamie County deer was found roughly 6.5 miles from a positive case detected near Walnut in Shelby County, northeast of Pottawattamie County.
"Basically, the DNR will try to do a lot more surveillance—so the deer that are already being harvested with the tags that are out there, we'll try to sample more of those," DNR Wildlife Biologist Matt Dollison told the radio station late last week. "Our quotas will go up and maybe expand in some areas, but we'll really just do more to try and figure out what the prevalence of the disease is in that area."
51 cases identified in recent hunting season
Since its first positive CWD test in 2013, Iowa has confirmed 438 cases out of 105,898 wild deer sampled, according to the DNR website. During the 2024-2025 hunting season, the DNR tested 5,459 samples, identifying 51 confirmed and 45 suspected CWD cases.