University of Minnesota researchers have discovered the first-ever way to field test deer for CWD, a potential game changer in the ongoing fight against the deer disease. The new test is cheaper than lab examinations currently in use to check for CWD, and more importantly, it uses field-deployable equipment to test tissue samples from deer and provide preliminary positive or negative results in 24 hours. Imagine this: Shoot a deer, drive to a test site and drop off a tissue sample. The same day or the next day you get a text saying if your deer tested positive (discard it) or negative (eat the meat) for CWD. I wrote about this exciting new development in-depth over at the Realtree website, [...]

The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) has announced the results of the 2020 – 2021 Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) surveillance efforts for two prominent Disease Management Areas, which encompass 11 counties in Virginia. DMA1 includes the counties of Clarke, Frederick, Shenandoah, and Warren; and DMA2 includes the counties of Culpeper, Fauquier, Loudoun, Madison, Page, Orange, and Rappahannock. Within the two DMAs, a total of 20 hunter-harvested whitetails were confirmed to be infected with CWD. Of the 20 CWD-positive deer, 13 originated in Frederick County, two originated in Shenandoah County, and one was harvested in each of Madison, Loudoun, Fauquier, Rappahannock, and Warren Counties. These CWD detections were a result of intensive sampling efforts that resulted in over 3,000 deer [...]

A couple of years ago my home state of Virginia banned the use of estrus doe and other attractant scents that contain natural deer urine. This even though many experts believe the risk of spreading Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in a herd with urine-based scents is virtually zero. Last year, on top of that, Virginia restricted the use of minerals to attract deer, which has thrown a major monkey wrench in my scouting strategy. But laws are laws, so this summer and fall I’m going to try something different. Rather than refreshing the licks (some a decade old) on the farms I hunt with minerals, I’ll be using Active-Cam™ Scouting Scent from Wildlife Research Center. It’s a non-urine-based curiosity scent [...]