Chronic Wasting Disease
About Chronic Wasting Disease
Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is a fatal brain disease of mule deer, white-tailed deer and elk. CWD is caused
by an abnormal protein molecule called a prion and is a disease closely related to scrapie in sheep, bovine
spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in cattle and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans. The disease is thought
to have been introduced into Saskatchewan farmed elk in the late 1980s via affected elk imported from the United
States, but it was not recognized in farmed elk until 1996. Shortly after the detection of CWD on game farms,
wildlife agencies in the prairie provinces began surveillance programs to determine the presence of the disease
amongst free-ranging deer and elk.
Chronic wasting disease is difficult to detect in wild deer. Initially, very few deer are likely to be affected
in most areas and these deer are likely to occur in relatively small geographic areas. Therefore large numbers
of animals must be tested from many different areas in order to determine the geographic range of this disease.
One method of detecting CWD in new areas is to ensure that all deer that appear ill are submitted to a
veterinary diagnostic laboratory for complete autopsy and CWD testing.
There are many unanswered questions regarding CWD. How did the disease first occur in North America and
in Saskatchewan? Did it occur spontaneously in deer or did the elk and deer acquire the disease from some
other wild or domestic species? How and when is the disease transmitted from animal to animal? What are the
long-term effects on deer populations? How fast will the disease spread? Will CWD spread to other species,
including people, under certain circumstances? The answers to these questions are critical in order to develop
an appropriate management response to this disease.
Chronic Wasting Disease
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