A Cranbrook urban deer has tested positive for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), according to a provincial wildlife biologist who revealed the news during a recent public info session hosted by a number of wildlife and environmental stakeholders.
During that info session at the Heritage Inn on March 13, Holger Bohm, a Provincial Ungulate Specialist, presented an update on CWD management and response in the Kootenay region, while Jessica Russel, a biosecurity and research expert, spoke about CWD history, management, response and outcomes in other Canadian provinces and U.S. states.
From the Cranbrook urban deer herd, 94 CWD samples had been processed out of the 100 that were recently collected from a sampling program, one of which had tested positive. The results from the remaining six samples were still pending at that time.
The same program also ran concurrently in Kimberley, with the goal of collecting 100 urban deer samples. However, the program ran into organized resistance and only 26 samples were collected. As of the time of the info session, 15 samples had been processed and returned negative, while 11 results were still pending.
The urban deer sampling program ran for 10 days in late February, where deer were captured through darting and euthanized to collect samples for testing. The only way to sample for CWD is to collect tissue from the brain stem or lymph nodes, but there's no way to collect a sample and keep the animal alive.
Beyond the urban deer sampling program, the province also recently concluded a special hunt by issuing 118 wildlife permits for resident hunters to harvest deer in a specified area around rural Cranbrook.
Of those 118 permits issued, only 36 deer heads were returned for sampling. Of those samples, 18 results have been processed negative and results from the remaining 18 are pending.
Bohm and government biologists are hoping to hear from those hunters who were issued a wildlife permit but didn't return a deer head for mandatory sampling 鈥� whether it meant they didn't get a chance to go out hunting, or passed up on a deer 鈥� in order to understand why only 36 heads were submitted when 118 permits were issued.
Further updates from the province are expected once all CWD samples are processed and results are returned.
To date, six cases of CWD have been identified in the Cranbrook and surrounding region since early 2024.
CWD affects cervids, such as deer, moose, elk and caribou, and is a condition of the central nervous system caused by infectious agents called prions, which kill cells in the brain as they accumulate and lead to neurological disease.
Prions, a type of protein, also accumulate in other tissues and may be shed by the infected animal into water or on plants and bedding through saliva, urine and feces.
It is 100 per cent fatal to wildlife with no known treatment.
However, it is not known to affect humans or livestock, although public health guidance recommends that animals with CWD should not be consumed.
