Check stations, self-service kiosks to open for CWD testing

Check stations and self-service kiosks will be available for hunters in eastern Washington this weekend to get their animals tested for chronic wasting disease.

The state’s early general deer and elk seasons opened Saturday, and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife staff will be working check stations from Colville to Walla Walla. There will also be more than a dozen sites open for hunters to drop off the heads of their animals for testing.

Most of the self-service kiosks are within the agency’s “incident response area” — the zone surrounding the location where a deer was found to have CWD this summer.

CWD testing is required for all hunter-killed and salvaged elk and deer in the zone, which covers game management units 124, 127 and 130.

Hunters who use the sites will be able to drop off the head of the deer or elk they’ve killed and placed in a barrel or freezer. Department staff will later extract samples from the heads and ship them off for testing.

The testing mandate in the three eastern Washington hunt units followed the confirmation of the state’s first case of CWD in a whitetail deer in north Spokane this summer.

CWD is an always fatal disease affecting deer, elk and moose. Spread by deformed proteins shed in bodily fluids, the disease attacks the animals’ nervous systems, causing them to become emaciated and eventually die.

Washington is the 35th state to find the disease within its borders. There’s no known risk to humans, though health officials recommend people don’t eat meat from infected animals. Still, wildlife officials worry the disease could wreak havoc on wildlife populations.

Testing is meant to help wildlife officials understand the scope of the outbreak and work to limit its spread. Samples consist of lymph nodes or brain tissue, and they can only be gathered from dead animals, which makes hunting a major tool in understanding the disease.

The department as been testing animals for CWD for years, and it ramped up its efforts in 2021 after the disease was found for the first time in Idaho.

Hunters who took part in bow and muzzleloader seasons have submitted samples. Staci Lehman, a spokesperson for the department, said that as of Tuesday the state had gathered 280 samples total from animals killed by hunters, salvaged animals and roadkill.

There are instructions on the department’s site for hunters to collect samples on their own. The agency also will have staff available to gather samples by appointment at its offices.

Check stations will be open Saturday and Sunday near Colville, Deer Park, Chattaroy, Telford, Sprague Lake, Rosalia, Pampa Pond, Walla Walla, the Last Resort and Clarkston. The stations will be open throughout the first general season and will open again during the late general season.

Self-service kiosks are available at several of the check stations plus several locations near popular hunting areas in northeast Washington and a handful of fire stations in Spokane County. There will be kiosks near Cheney, Medical Lake, Reardan, Sprague, Fairfield and Rockford, among others.

A map and a full list of all the check stations and self-service kiosks are available online at wdfw.wa.gov/species-habitats/diseases/chronic-wasting.