Chronic wasting disease on the rise in Minnesota, but still a 'rare event'
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With just over 14,000 chronic wasting disease samples collected from deer this hunting season, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources reports confirmed cases of the disease are up nearly 26 percent.
During the 2024-2025 hunting season, 96 deer tested positive for the always-fatal disease. This year, that number increased.
“We have right around 120 positives so far in the state,” said Seth Goreham, a DNR wildlife research manager. “The vast majority of those are coming from our core area in the southeast, kind of south of Rochester.”
That's the same area where last year the DNR declared CWD endemic, which means 5 percent or more of all deer there are infected with the disease. Goreham said because the CWD is so prevalent in those populations, the DNR is incorporating other tools to manage it.
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“We’re not looking to eradicate that disease because we know science is showing us that that’s going to be nearly impossible in those areas,” he said. “What we really want to do is limit the spread and keep that prevalence number as low as we possibly can.”
Last year, CWD was detected in two deer permit areas without any prior history of the disease.
“Unfortunately, we did have one new area of detection,” said Erik Hildebrand, a wildlife health supervisor with the DNR. “That was just west of the metro permit area. So, it’s kind of by Glencoe, Minnesota."
Hildebrand said the area was already under surveillance because of potential spillover from a first-time case last year. While the DNR has reported that 44 percent of all CWD positives ever detected in the state were within the last 18 months, Hildebrand said most of those were in the southeast’s endemic areas.
However, Hildebrand notes that “CWD is still a rare event in Minnesota.”
But that’s not the case for some of the bordering states. According to a 2025 release by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, Wisconsin’s overall CWD rate is 10 percent. And as high as 21 percent in its south region.
“To look at a bright side of this, we’re not to that point of the disease,” Hildebrand added.
CWD is a prion disease that causes proteins in a host’s body to misfold. The prions collect in the brain, spinal column and lymph nodes leading to neurological damage. Although the disease causes death it takes about two years for it to happen. It’s spread through an infected animal’s bodily fluids either physically or through environmental deposits. It can also affect other cervids like moose or elk.
The DNR’s CWD testing is expected to conclude by the end of the month.
