The findings don’t confirm that the fatal disease is a threat to people but do offer important clues to what infection might look like in humans.
Register now for our August 12, 2026, webinar, From Soils to Streams: Characterizing Waterborne Prion Transport. Diana Karwan, PhD; Anu Li, PhD; and Stuart Lichtenberg, PhD, will discuss recent work with hydrological prion movement and implications for environmental management of CWD, moderated by Cory Anderson, PhD.
The report provides useful guidance to professionals at human, animal, and wildlife health agencies; academic researchers; and medical practitioners who will be tasked with responding to any human or non-cervid animal chronic wasting disease spillover.
The CIDRAP CWD Resource Center hosts webinars featuring natural and international experts.
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It may be possible for deer or non-cervid animals such as people to be exposed to prions from contaminated plants, but the CWD-prion species barrier in humans is thought to be high.
CWD prions (misfolded proteins) were found in a county scrape, or area that bucks defoliate by pawing, in June.
The BC Wildlife Federation reports 2 cases of the fatal neurodegenerative prion disease in a male mule deer and a female white-tailed deer in the southeastern part of the province.
The disease was confirmed in a buck mule deer in Deer Hunt Area 90 in December.
The CWD positive is the first at Sheboygan County farm, though the disease had been detected in the area's wild deer.
The fatal neurodegenerative infection was confirmed in a hunter-harvested cow elk in Elk Hunt Area 28 in late December.
During the next 5 years, the farm won't be able to hold cervids—members of the deer family—and must maintain fences and allow routine inspections.
For the first time, CWD was found in Rock, Blaine, and Thomas counties, all in the north-central part of the state.
The sample was obtained from a taxidermist and tested as part of proactive surveillance.
The case was in a cow elk in Elk Hunt Area 122 harvested by a hunter in early November.
