200 more deer test positive for chronic wasting disease across Pa.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission reported 200 more cases of chronic wasting disease last year in white-tailed deer and is enlarging three disease management areas across the state that include Westmoreland and Armstrong counties.

There is no cure or live-animal test for CWD, a brain disease that is deadly for deer, elk and moose.

The game commission set up three disease management areas, along with a buffer zone, to try to stop the spread of CWD. An uptick in new cases caused the agency to enlarge the areas.

With 2019’s new cases, the game commission reports there now have been 453 CWD-positive free-ranging deer found in Pennsylvania since the disease’s emergence in the state in 2012.

According to Andrea Korman, the game commission’s CWD biologist, the agency tested 15,686 free-ranging deer and 161 free-ranging elk in 2019. The vast majority of those were hunter-harvested animals.

Of the total, 204 white-tailed deer tested positive for chronic wasting disease, and no elk tested positive, according to the commission. The counties with the most CWD-positive deer were Bedford (99 new cases), Fulton (56) and Blair (30). Other counties that had at least one CWD-positive deer included Cambria, Franklin, Huntingdon, Indiana, Jefferson, Juniata, Somerset and Westmoreland.