How can you tell if a deer has CWD? Symptoms of infected animals include emaciation, excessive salivation, lack of muscle coordination, difficulty in swallowing, excessive thirst, and excessive urination. Subtle behavioral changes like loss of fear of humans or other abnormal behavior are often the first signs noticed.

CWD Zones & Check Stations

• Bexar County.
• Brooks County.
• Duval County.
• Frio Zavala County.
• Gillespie County.
• Gonzales County.
• Hamilton County.
• Hunt County.

What is chronic wasting disease? CWD is a disease found in some deer, elk and moose populations. CWD damages portions of the brain and typically causes progressive loss of body condition, behavioral changes, excessive salivation and death.

CWD Surveillance Areas and Special Regulations

What is Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD)?

• Severe weight loss.
• Stumbling.
• Listlessness.
• Drooling.
• High thirst or urination.
• Drooping ears.
• Lack of fear‌

The disease is not caused by a virus or bacteria. CWD is one of a family of diseases called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. These diseases are the result of a naturally occurring protein, called a prion, that becomes misfolded and thus resists being broken down by the body the way normal proteins are.

CWD in Animals

1. drastic weight loss (wasting)
2. stumbling.
3. lack of coordination.
4. listlessness.
5. drooling.
6. excessive thirst or urination.
7. drooping ears.
8. lack of fear of people.

Since 2012, TPWD has recorded 504 confirmed cases of CWD in whitetails and mule deer, both free-range and captive. Sixty percent of the 504 positive tests - 300 cases - have occurred since 2021, and breeder deer comprised 258 of them.

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is classified as a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE), or prion disease, along with other animal diseases, such as scrapie and bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

Chronic wasting disease (CWD), sometimes called zombie deer disease, is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) affecting deer.

Since 1997, CWD has been found in farmed cervids (white-tailed deer, red deer, and elk) in 16 States: Colorado, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New York, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin.

Chronic wasting disease is caused by a misfolded protein called a prion. All mammals produce normal prions that are used by cells, then degraded and eliminated, or recycled, within the body. When disease-associated prions contact normal prions, they cause them to refold into their own abnormal shape.