KALISPELL — Chronic wasting disease (CWD) was detected for the first time in Flathead Valley wild deer after the animal was euthanized at the Flathead County landfill back in October.
Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks (FWP) is now reporting nine additional confirmed CWD-positive samples in wild deer at that same landfill.
“And we’ve really zeroed in on the landfill as being a site where we have had now ten positives,” said FWP spokesman Dillon Tabish.
CWD is a contagious neurological disease that affects deer, elk, and moose.
While it poses no known risks to humans, it is always fatal to infected animals and can have significant impacts on local wildlife populations if left unchecked.
“We really want to try to contain it and reduce the spread into the surrounding area," Tabish noted.
Tabish said they’re working closely with the landfill located off U.S. Highway 93 just north of Kalispell to keep track of deer entering the property.
The disease is spread through prions, which persist in the environment and can be transmitted through saliva, feces, urine, and carcasses of infected animals.
“And fortunately, we had over 330 samples and only those ten at the landfill came back as positive, so that is good news for now because it shows that it hasn’t potentially spread into the surrounding area, it’s really in that one confined area at the landfill," Tabish told MTN.
Tabish said FWP has a short-term plan in place that involves euthanizing any deer observed entering the landfill this winter. He says FWP employees will euthanize deer during nighttime hours when the public and county staff are not present.
“It’s an unfortunate situation, we don’t want to be having to put deer down like this, but it’s really for the greater good, it’s really trying to prevent those deer coming in that are healthy, potentially getting infected, going back out, and now we got a bigger problem.”
Tabish said FWP is working on a long-term solution that includes ramping up CWD testing of wild deer in the Flathead Valley.
“Since this is such a new detection it’s been a surprise to all of us, and so we really want to make sure that we’re keeping our finger on the pulse and we know how bad it’s spread if it has, which right now it hasn’t and what the prevalence is.”
For more information on CWD in Montana, visit https://fwp.mt.gov/CWD.
