Passport to Texas

Passport to Texas with support from the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program

Mule deer taken earlier this year from the Hueco Mountains in Far West Texas tested positive for Chronic Wasting Disease.

15—It’s what they call a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, or TSE, which is similar to scrapie in sheep or BSE [mad cow disease] in cattle. I think it’s important to note that CWD is not known to infect livestock or humans for that matter.

Mitch Lockwood is Texas Parks and Wildife big game program director. The agency sampled more than 26-thousand hunter-harvested deer for the disease over the past decade; this recent discovery marks the first known cases inside Texas.

30—The incubation period for CWD is long. It can be two to three years, and it could possibly be longer than that in some cases. And so that’s one of the challenges of the disease; the deer doesn’t show any outward signs of being infected. There could be a long time between the deer actually being infected with CWD…before it actually shows any outward sign. So, that disease is able to manifest itself long before we detect that disease in the population.

In the latter stages of the diseases, symptoms may include listlessness, weight loss, weakness, and no fear of humans. Contact Parks and Wildlife is you encounter a deer displaying these symptoms.

Tomorrow: the CWD management strategy.

The Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program…supports our series and funds diverse conservation projects throughout Texas…

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.