Chronic wasting disease has now been found in Florida, making it the 31st US state where the disease has been confirmed.
Chronic wasting disease is a contagious, neurological disease that is always fatal in deer but does not seem to affect people.
Signs of the disease can include extreme weight loss and abnormal behaviors such as listlessness, lowering of the head, inattentiveness toward people, walking in circles, staggering and standing with a wide stance.
Controlling the spread of CWD is difficult once it becomes established in a natural population; it can be transmitted directly - from animal to animal - or indirectly from the environment.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission confirmed the disease in a road-killed 4.5-year-old female white-tailed deer in Holmes County sampled during routine surveillance activities.
The FWC and its agency partners take Chronic wasting disease very seriously and have implemented a comprehensive response plan that includes taking samples from specific established zones to further assess the spread of the disease.
The FWC has been monitoring free-ranging deer since 2002 to detect the disease.
During that time, they have tested nearly 17,500 hunter-killed, road-killed and sick or diseased deer for CWD.
The FWC is asking anyone who sees a sick, abnormally thin deer or finds a deer dead from unknown causes to call the CWD hotline, 866-CWD-WATCH (866-293-9282) and report the animal’s location.
Chronic wasting disease is a contagious, neurological disease that is always fatal in deer but does not seem to affect people.
Signs of the disease can include extreme weight loss and abnormal behaviors such as listlessness, lowering of the head, inattentiveness toward people, walking in circles, staggering and standing with a wide stance.
Controlling the spread of CWD is difficult once it becomes established in a natural population; it can be transmitted directly - from animal to animal - or indirectly from the environment.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission confirmed the disease in a road-killed 4.5-year-old female white-tailed deer in Holmes County sampled during routine surveillance activities.
The FWC and its agency partners take Chronic wasting disease very seriously and have implemented a comprehensive response plan that includes taking samples from specific established zones to further assess the spread of the disease.
The FWC has been monitoring free-ranging deer since 2002 to detect the disease.
During that time, they have tested nearly 17,500 hunter-killed, road-killed and sick or diseased deer for CWD.
The FWC is asking anyone who sees a sick, abnormally thin deer or finds a deer dead from unknown causes to call the CWD hotline, 866-CWD-WATCH (866-293-9282) and report the animal’s location.
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