Secondary testing being performed
The NCWRC has reported the first presumptive case of Chronic Wasting Disease in Edgecombe County, NC. Secondary testing is being performed by the National Veterinary Services Laboratory to verify the results.
The positive result of CWD appeared in a 3.5-year-old male deer that was harvested by a hunter a few miles from the Pitt-Martin County line, in the eastern corner of Edgecombe County.
If confirmed as positive, this would mark the first case in Edgecombe County, and the 35th overall in the state of North Carolina. The first in the state was detected in 2022.
“We’re certainly not happy to learn that we may have a new CWD-infected area in the northeastern part of the state,” said Chris Kreh, the NCWRC’s assistant chief of the Game and Furbearer Program. “However, this is what our surveillance plan is designed to do – find areas where CWD is occurring, as early as possible, so we can minimize its impact.”
Transmissible to other deer through saliva, urine and feces, CWD is a fatal disease, and the movement of deer carcasses and carcass parts can also spread the disease.
There is no cure for CWD, and it’s also impossible to detect the presence of the disease in live deer. Deer usually appear healthy during the early stages of the disease, and hunters who have killed deer that later tested CWD-positive said they noticed nothing out-of-the-ordinary about those deer.
NCWRC urges hunters to have their harvested deer tested. Click here to find out how to have yours tested.