It’s a bad sign when you see a skinny, stumbling, drooling deer in Ohio.
The white-tailed deer likely has something called chronic wasting disease, a fatal illness for which there is no vaccine and no cure, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
There are no known cases in humans, but the disease is known to affect caribou, deer, elk and moose, and it has been found in animals in at least 35 states.
Chronic wasting disease is caused by “misfolded proteins known as prions” that create holes in the deer’s nervous system, damaging tissue and vital structures. Additional symptoms include loss of motor function, a diminished fear of humans, and a drooping head.
The first Ohio case was found in a deer in northwestern Ohio’s Wyandot County five years ago. Since then, the disease has been found during monitoring in Allen, Hardin, Marion and Morrow counties, which are adjacent to Wyandot.
Having been part of Hardin County’s Disease Surveillance Area (DSA) for years, it has become increasingly easier to educate the Hardin County community about the effects of the disease, said Ohio Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Officer Ryan Kennedy.
“Being in a county that long, you build a lot of relationships with these hunters and the public,” Kennedy said. “I always do a pre-deer season radio (show) … on the local station, and we go over all the CWD changes.”
Proposed rules and regulations for the 2025 hunting season are scheduled to be announced on June 30, and it’s possible the Disease Surveillance Area will be extended to more counties.
“Now we have got proposals where [DSA could] expand, so we are going to have to get that education out,” Kennedy said.
Part of the education includes informing hunters about the current hunting season’s DSA regulations, which can range from restrictions about moving deer carcasses to rules concerning food plots for deer and baiting to lure deer to a hunting location.
Sara Zaleski, a wildlife technician with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, said methods of tracking the spread of the disease are limited by current technology. Common sampling methods to test for chronic wasting disease involve only dead deer, not live deer.
Live sampling methods are becoming more prevalent, but only for deer in captivity and not the hundreds of thousands in the wild across Ohio.
Because the disease has a long incubation period of about 18 months, it can be difficult to spot and, by extension, harder to control through human intervention.
And the disease spreads easily: Experts say an infected deer’s feces, urine, and blood can transfer the disease to others in its herd. And when an infected deer dies, the disease-carrying prions can stay in soil and grass for months after the deer’s death. Then healthy deer eat the grass, and the prions transfer to their system, and the cycle continues.
Now, with an increasing deer population thanks to mating and foraging success, more deer in the central Ohio region will be susceptible to the disease, ODNR officials said.
In states where chronic wasting disease has been passed between deer for decades, the demographics of deer populations may be shifting.
“Studies are showing that this chronic wasting disease does affect the deer herd,” Zaleski said. “It affects the sex ratio of the herd, as well as population.”
Mature males, in particular, are far more susceptible to infection, because their larger range increases the chances for them to come in contact with infected deer.
Deer hunters are in the best position to help monitor the spread of the disease.
Deer they identify as potentially infected can have samples of lymph nodes sent off to labs to be tested, and state deer-checking facilities make it easy for hunters to drop off deer for free testing.
But nationwide, there is a challenge in relying on hunters. While the number of hunters appears to have stabilized in Ohio, the rest of the country is seeing a decline, which raises some concern about the ability to track the disease’s progress moving forward.
“Across the country, we are losing hunters, and hunters are really the only way that we have been able to successfully manage deer not only in Ohio, but across the white-tail’s range,” said Mike Tonkovich, the ODNR Wildlife Division Deer Program Administrator. “Without hunters, we are going to have to come up with other lethal means for removing deer.”
With fewer hunters to thin the herd, populations will grow, and so will the number of deer with the disease. Future interventions for managing deer numbers could include controlled hunting programs and thinning the herd with sharpshooters, Tonkovich explained.
Hans Tritico, a hunter and professor of engineering at the University of Mount Union, east of Canton in Alliance, is apprehensive about the future of hunting in Ohio and future conservation efforts.
“One of those long-term worries is that some of the best conservationists in the United States are hunters and fishers,” Tritico said. “They’re the folks that spend significant amount of time out in the wilds and value wildlands and ecosystems, and so the more barriers you put up to people connecting with the greater natural world, the less likely people are going to be willing to put their tax dollars in that direction, or generally, vote to save these beautiful places.”
Chronic wasting disease will not go away soon, but wildlife officials say that a mitigation policy and proper monitoring will help now and in the future for the white-tailed deer.
“What is it that Ohioans pin themselves to?” Tritico asked. “For a large portion of the population, that is the majestic deer.”
For more information, go to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ website. Suspected cases of the disease in deer can be reported to ODNR at 419-429-8322.