First Case of CWD Confirmed in Yellowstone Nationwide Park

An grownup mule deer buck is Yellowstone Nationwide Park’s first continual losing illness sufferer, officers introduced on Tuesday in a press launch. The buck had been fitted with a GPS collar in March 2023 as a part of a inhabitants dynamics examine by the Wyoming Recreation and Fish Division, and its collar emitted a mortality sign in mid-October. Outcomes from a number of diagnostic exams have confirmed that CWD was the reason for dying.

After receiving the mortality sign, WGFD coordinated with the Nationwide Park Service and located the buck on the Promontory, which the YNP web site describes as “a landmass that separates the South and Southeast arms of Yellowstone Lake.” WGFD officers collected samples for testing at their Wildlife Well being Laboratory.

Within the coming days and weeks, YNP will coordinate with WGFD and different neighboring state businesses to determine the place within the park CWD may present up subsequent. They may also enhance surveillance efforts over deer, elk, and moose populations and bump up testing efforts in deceased animals. 

It’s a transitory time for mule deer in YNP. Whereas round 1,900 mule deer spend their summer time throughout the boundary, principally within the northern a part of the park, simply 400 stay by means of the winter whereas the remainder migrate elsewhere. Whereas it’s unclear whether or not mule deer spend a lot time close to Yellowstone Lake, the big physique of water is south of the broad summer time vary that mule deer occupy, and even additional south of their core winter vary.

YNP is dwelling to a really scarce and unmonitored inhabitants of whitetail deer, and fewer than 200 moose. However the elk inhabitants is tenfold what the mule deer inhabitants is. In the summertime, 10,000 to twenty,000 elk stroll into the boundary, and a few 4,000 elk stay by means of the winter. CWD impacts elk in the identical means it impacts deer, and is 100% deadly. 

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YNP officers are presently revising the park’s 2021 Continual Losing Illness Surveillance Plan and predict that the up to date model can be prepared in 2024, the press launch famous. Officers didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.