CWD detected in Baxter and Cleburne counties

LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission recently confirmed that two deer in Cleburne County and another deer in Baxter County have tested positive for chronic wasting disease. Both deer were harvested during the 2024-25 deer hunting season. They join samples from Conway and Stone counties that were confirmed CWD-positive earlier in the season.

Both of the Cleburne County deer were harvested within a quarter-mile of each other. Both positive samples came from 2-and-a-half-year-old bucks, and both were submitted through the AGFC’s network of testing drop-off containers.

The Baxter County sample came from a 3-and-a-half-year-old buck harvested in November and taken to one of the AGFC’s partnering taxidermists, where the CWD sample was taken.

Both Cleburne and Baxter counties were already included in the AGFC’s CWD Management Zone, both as a result of CWD-positive deer being detected near their borders, initiating a risk assessment process outlined in the 2021-2025 CWD Management and Response Plan. In Cleburne County, a positive deer was found in close proximity to the county line near Shirley in Van Buren County along with a detection in 2022 in Independence County near Locust Grove. Baxter County was added to the CWD Management Zone in 2019 as a result of positive cases in Marion and Searcy counties close to the county line.

The first Stone County deer was taken on private land adjacent to Sylamore Wildlife Management Area during the alternative firearms hunt. Since that time another four positive samples have been identified. Stone County is already included in the existing CWD Management Zone due to the close proximity of positive samples from Searcy, Van Buren and Independence counties.

A Conway County deer was harvested on Ed Gordon Point Remove WMA during the permit hunt there. A second CWD positive deer was harvested just north of the WMA near Hattieville. Due to the close proximity of multiple CWD positive samples in adjoining Pope and Van Buren counties, Conway County also was high on the AGFC’s watchlist for CWD.

“The probability of finding CWD in these counties eventually was high, given their proximity to other known positive cases,” AJ Riggs, wildlife health biologist for the AGFC, said. “These new cases confirm that our protocols for early detection are effective.”

According to the management and response plan, no deer hunting regulations concerning CWD will be changed during the remainder of the 2024-25 deer season, which ends Feb. 28.

CWD is a fatal neurological disease that affects deer, elk, caribou and moose. It was first detected in Arkansas Feb. 23, 2016. Since the first detection, AGFC has tested more than 67,500 deer and elk from across the state. To date, 1,970 deer and 56 elk have tested positive for the disease in Arkansas.

Research indicates that CWD is caused by a misfolded protein called a prion that is transmitted through feces, urine and saliva. CWD prions accumulate throughout the body and affect an animal’s nervous system. The diseased prions cause normal cellular proteins to misfold into abnormal shapes that accumulate until neural cells cease to function. CWD can have an incubation period of at least 16 months, which means infected animals may not show immediate signs of disease. Infected animals in the latter stages of the disease begin to lose weight and exhibit many abnormal behaviors.

Visit www.agfc.com/CWD for an updated map of positive cases in Arkansas. To report sick or dead animals, please call 833-356-0824.

####

CUTLINES:

GRAY MAP
Recent test results from hunter-harvested white-tailed deer revealed the first CWD-positive cases in Baxter and Cleburne counties.

CWD TEST LOCATION
The AGFC maintains a network of free, convenient drop-off locations for hunters to have harvested deer checked. 

BIOLOGISTS AT CHECK STATION
CWD samples taken at a check station on Ed Gordon Point Remove WMAs identified CWD-positive deer in those locations in November 2024.