My first season deer hunting in Wisconsin was 2001, the same season that produced Wisconsin’s first deer to test positive for chronic wasting disease. CWD has always been at the forefront of deer hunting discussions in my time as a hunter, and I’ve watched the disease slowly spread and worsen. Since 2019, eight of 11 deer I’ve taken on my family’s property in Richland County in Southwest Wisconsin have tested positive for CWD – including the buck in the photo above.
Aside from harvesting otherwise perfectly healthy-looking deer that test positive for CWD, we are now seeing live deer walking around in the awful final stages of this disease. Research has now confirmed what I’ve seen occurring on our hunting land in the last five to six years: CWD is beginning to reduce deer populations in high-prevalence areas like mine.
It didn’t have to reach this point. Hunters in areas with low CWD prevalence can keep infection rates low and deer populations healthy overall by accepting and implementing certain strategies. Some of the strategies I will lay out will challenge you as a hunter to play the “long game,” but there are ways to slow the spread of CWD in areas where it is newly discovered and infection rates are still low.
If you’re rolling your eyes at another guy talking about CWD, I get it, but I urge you to keep reading. Hear my personal story, how it has affected my hunting experiences, and what can happen if hunters ignore CWD.
“Where Are the Deer?”
Up until about seven years ago, I was still trying to figure out this CWD thing and what I thought of it all. I hadn’t yet seen or felt the effects. I was trying to improve my hunting in a variety of different ways like everyone else.
In Iowa County, hunters killed only 916 bucks during the 2024 nine-day firearms season. The last time Iowa County recorded less than 1,000 bucks killed during the nine-day firearms season was in 1971.
We began testing every deer taken on our farm in 2019, and with 72% of them testing positive, it’s safe to say we’re in the thick of it. I’m not alone. I speak to countless hunters in Southwest Wisconsin at trade shows and other events, and many of them are saying the same thing: “What is happening? Where are the deer?”
In Iowa County, hunters killed only 916 bucks during the 2024 nine-day firearms season. The last time Iowa County recorded less than 1,000 bucks killed during the nine-day firearms season was in 1971. Iowa County tested 694 deer during the 2024 deer season, and 25% of deer tested were positive. Richland and Sauk counties both had a 33% positive CWD rate and together tested 2,193 deer. In 2004, a few years after the initial surge of testing occurred in Wisconsin, Richland County tested 1,691 deer and no deer tested positive for CWD. So, we haven’t been finding CWD just because we’re testing more. It arrived and has spread significantly.
The first time I saw what I believed to be CWD up close and personal was in spring 2023 when my dad and I were marching up a steep ridge for an afternoon turkey hunt. Just a short distance into the walk, I spotted a buck with velvet sprouts. “Dad,” I said. “Deer.”
We both thought it was unusual this deer wasn’t bounding off since we were within 40 yards. Springtime bucks are certainly not the paranoid creatures they become in fall, though. So, we closed the distance since we were headed that way and wanted a closer look.
The buck was very clearly sick. The hair on the back of my neck stood up instantly. A better view revealed his shaking, emaciated body and drool spilling from his mouth (see the photo below). His spine, shoulder blades, and scars up and down his legs told me this deer was in the final stage of CWD but had just enough energy to escape a few predators in the days prior. I had begun to wonder why so many of my 3½-year-old bucks never returned, and this moment convinced me CWD is playing a role in bucks constantly disappearing. This buck was days away from dying of holes eaten in his brain. We were able to put him out of his misery with permission from the Wisconsin DNR.
I travel 200 miles one way to hunt this property in Southwest Wisconsin. The disease has in a way disrupted my motivation to keep traveling here, knowing full well there is a high likelihood of any deer we kill testing positive, resulting in us throwing out the meat. If you don’t hunt in a CWD zone, your routine following a successful hunt is probably simple and relatively careless. The presence of CWD changes that real quick. Shooting a deer means we could be in for a few frustrating weeks to follow as we wait for CWD test results. I’ve wasted countless hours butchering deer only to throw out the venison.
My friend and fellow Wisconsin deer hunter Bradie Ewing follows the same recommended protocols I do regarding CWD-positive venison.
“We have made the decision that we will not eat or feed a CWD positive deer to our kids or family, so this has caused some logistical headaches,” said Bradie. “The investment of time up front in butchering a deer is significant only to later throw it away if its positive.”
In 2020, I had nearly 30 bucks on trail-camera I estimated to be 3½ years old or older. In 2024, I felt confident we had only seven or eight deer in that age class. A stark decrease. I also ran about 20 more trail cameras on this 115-acre property in 2024 than I did in 2020, so fewer photos are not playing a role in my estimation of fewer mature deer. There are simply fewer mature deer, and DNR harvest data shows it’s not because hunters killed more older bucks in recent seasons. It’s because of CWD.
Why do I keep making the drive back to Richland County? My parents have lived on this land since 1987. This is the land where I was born and raised, where I grew up exploring the woods and learning to hunt squirrels and deer. It’s where I feel I belong, and I know that strong emotional attachment will keep me coming back to hunt deer with my family every fall.
Common Sense
Chronic Wasting Disease prions can be shed via saliva at mineral sites. CWD prions can exist in the soil below licking branches in a scrape. We’re never going to eliminate deer-to-deer contact in the wild. But if you’re in a low CWD prevalence area, there are some common-sense practices you should follow. You can learn from a few of my mistakes.
In the last few years, I’ve wondered if we can truly do anything to curb the spread of CWD in extremely high prevalence areas. One day I would feel the CWD battle is worth fighting, then just days later I’d harvest a CWD positive deer and be discouraged to the point of thinking “this is a bridge too far.”
I told myself I just wanted to get back to hunting. In the midst of these internal battles, I set out a tank-style waterhole on a Southwest Wisconsin property I hunt. While baiting or feeding is illegal in every Southwest Wisconsin county to help slow the spread of disease, the Wisconsin DNR has not banned the creation of artificial water sources. There are limited water resources on this property, and I thought a waterhole would be a unique way to attract deer near a stand site.
I had an abundance of deer visiting the water tank in the few months it was set up. Despite all the trail-camera photos, a famous Aldo Leopold quote would occasionally run through my mind: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and the beauty of the biotic community – it is wrong if it tends otherwise.”
During the short time I had the waterhole out, I emptied and re-filled it many times since I still wanted to be cognizant of disease transmission. But I have to be honest with myself and admit that if I care about wild deer and the places they live, setting out a small, non-flowing waterhole in a CWD zone was a mistake. Not long after killing a visibly sick, CWD-positive doe that came to drink from the waterhole, we removed it.
In certain regions of the U.S., baiting is just a way of life and how it’s always been done. So, I get the enjoyment and desire to feed or provide artificial water sources for deer. I know hunters in states like Texas and Kansas who would hardly have a deer pass through their land if they didn’t run a feeder.
Are we going to stop the spread of CWD by banning waterholes or baiting? No. But common sense would say those things don’t help an infected herd. Artificially inflating your local deer population in a high CWD prevalence zone by feeding is dangerous because deer that may not otherwise come in contact with one another could share infectious prions at a bait or water site.
Does the presence of CWD mean you should never hang a mock licking branch or plant food plots to improve your hunting opportunities? I believe that’s an unreasonable way of thinking. I am still going to create food plots and mock scrapes. However, I strongly believe we need to practice common sense and realize there are matters we can take into our own hands when it comes to mitigating the spread of CWD. It begins with pulling triggers and landowners making strong, individual decisions regarding their deer herd and holding to them.
Sound Management and Testing
“Earn-A-Buck” was a tool some states used intermittently to effectively manage high deer herds. Wisconsin had implemented EAB off and on beginning in 1996, until it was signed out of law by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. I believe EAB is an effective tool for managing deer herds in some places, and I believe it’s no coincidence CWD rates have steadily increased in Wisconsin since Gov. Walker got rid of the law with pressure from other politicians and interest groups. There are few better incentives to take a doe than requiring it before you can take a buck. The only incentive that worked is now gone.
Earn-A-Buck cannot be signed back into law without the Wisconsin legislature doing so. Wisconsin hunters are left with a distinct choice that Wisconsin hunter Doug Duren is often heard saying. “Where CWD is established or taking hold, we have one of two choices,” Doug says. “We are going to manage the herd and the disease, or CWD is going to do it for us.” Wisconsin has had no effective deer management plan since the elimination of EAB in 2011.
In talking with countless hunters in my region, it appears CWD can be somewhat pocketed even within high prevalence counties like mine. The variability of CWD prevalence within a county could be due to availability of better habitat, people not illegally baiting in certain areas, or for unknown reasons. But we do know that high deer density helps CWD spread faster, so simply continuing to harvest deer – especially does – works. Doe harvest helps keep deer density in balance with the habitat and reduces deer-to-deer spread of CWD, which means healthier deer in all respects. But it’s not just about doe harvest.
Bucks test positive at a higher rate than does because of behaviors like traveling farther during the rut. I would encourage you to be less picky about harvesting bucks if CWD has just been discovered and you’re trying to keep prevalence rates low. NDA’s advice for hunters in CWD zones is to continue managing for older bucks if you wish but apply increased harvest pressure on all bucks 2½ years of age or older.
Do I wish we could go back to those days of low prevalence and undergo targeted removal missions on my family’s land to see if it would prevent or delay the problem we have today? Yes.
Sustained harvest on all deer, bucks and does, means a better chance of removing infected deer from the landscape sooner. If hunters back off deer harvest because of CWD, infected deer enjoy greater protection, and they can spread more CWD prions into the environment and to other deer. In fact, every time you harvest a deer that tests positive for CWD, you should look at this as a win in the fight against this disease.
Jason Sumners is the Director of the Missouri Department of Conservation and has guided Missouri through a proactive approach to CWD.
“If all you are doing is testing to show you are doing something, it’s a complete waste of critical agency resources,” said Jason. “Short of documenting the demise of deer and giving some hunters a little more comfort when consuming deer harvested in CWD areas, it’s not doing anything to help the herd.”
What is Missouri doing? A lot of testing but also Targeted harvesting in select zones with landowner approval. In 2025, they’ve killed 4,793 deer with 68 (1.4%) of those being positive. While the CWD positive rate of these targeted removals is still low, that’s the point. This is a relatively small number of deer removed statewide, but because they are removed with precision from sites where deer previously tested positive, sick deer are removed sooner. Missouri is keeping CWD prevalence rates in check throughout these surveillance zones.
Would I have been hesitant to allow targeted deer removal or “sharpshooting”’on my property back when CWD had just been discovered? Yes. Do I wish we could go back to those days of low prevalence and undergo targeted removal missions on my family’s land to see if it would prevent or delay the problem we have today? Yes.
The early stage of CWD is the only stage when intervention and management can hope to hold infection rates low. If you wait until you are seeing sick deer in the woods, which is a sign you are in “late-stage” CWD, it’s too late to do anything about it.
If CWD isn’t in your woods yet, you should still make it a point to submit deer for testing anytime an opportunity is presented. Early detection of a new outbreak is critical. Early detection gives hunters and the state wildlife agency the opportunity to respond. CWD testing isn’t a proclamation of any political views or ideologies. However, it is absolutely a pledge that you care about deer and their future.
We Are Not Doomed
I believe there will always be white-tailed deer in my area of Wisconsin. However, within 20 to 25 years, I believe fewer bucks will reach maturity than today, and a lot fewer than when I began hunting over 20 years ago.
This is despite more people than ever before passing younger deer and managing for older deer. I think in some areas like mine with high CWD prevalence, the average age of bucks has already dropped significantly from where it was just a few years ago – at a time when NDA’s Deer Report shows more bucks aged 3½ years old or older being harvested nationally than ever before.
If CWD has been found in your woods, ignoring it will take your hunting down the wrong path. Private landowners especially will play a critical role in properly managing whitetails in America in the next 30 years. I’m reminded of this Aldo Leopold quote: “Conservation will ultimately boil down to rewarding the private landowner who conserves the public interest.”
In this case, public interest is healthy deer. In most of whitetail country, unlike Southwest Wisconsin, it’s not too late to do something. Common-sense practices might seem like a burden to you now, but it’s nothing compared to what I’m experiencing. Ignoring those practices might help your short-term hunting opportunities, but remember you are in the position I wish I could go back to. Ask yourself if the choices you are making now will help conserve a better future for all.