Experts are enforcing emergency measures to prevent the spread of the highly contagious neurodegenerative disease
Wildlife officials in Florida have discovered only the second case in the state of a deadly infection known colloquially as “zombie deer disease”, and are enforcing emergency measures to try to prevent a spread.
The highly contagious chronic wasting disease (CWD) was found during routine screening in the carcass of a young white-tailed doe that was struck by a vehicle in Holmes county, close to the Alabama border, early last month. The only previous recorded instance in Florida was in a four-year-old doe killed about a mile away in June 2023.
Experts are warning of a domino effect on wildlife management if the neurodegenerative disease, more prevalent in western and north-eastern states, is not contained. Although not harmful to humans, it has no vaccine or cure, and spreads easily through animal to animal contact, environmental contamination, and ticks.
“This disease right now is probably the greatest threat to deer and deer hunting in North America,” said wildlife biologist Steven Shea, an expert in deer populations who manages more than half a million acres of species habitat in central Florida.
