Does CWD exist in Virginia?
Yes. The first case of CWD was confirmed in a female deer killed by a hunter in November 2009 on private land in Frederick County, within a few miles of where CWD has been detected in Hampshire County, West Virginia every year since 2005. For more information about CWD in West Virginia, please see WVDNR’s website. To establish whether CWD occurs in Virginia, the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (VDGIF) initiated a CWD surveillance program in fall 2002. From 2002 to 2009, approximately 4,900 samples have been collected across Virginia. This program has included testing deer using three different surveillance approaches: (a) active random sampling of hunter-killed and road-killed deer, (b) targeted surveillance of clinical suspect (sick-looking) and high-risk animals, and (c) testing of all deer that die in captivity (a DGIF permit is required to possess any member of the deer family in Virginia, and most are held in zoos). Except for statewide sampling in 2002 and 2007,
