Originally seen in Fish’n Canada’s Week in Review

Throughout the 2021 deer season, the Government of Saskatchewan provided Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) testing throughout the province to help slow the spread of the disease.

This program has now reached its final weeks and hunters have until Friday, January 21st, 2022 to submit their deer for testing.

In order to get their deer tested, hunters can look for the various stations located throughout the province at this link at which they can submit the head of their deer. More information on this process can be found here.

As we have covered quite a bit here at Fish’n Canada, Chronic Wasting Disease is a prion disease that targets the brains of ungulates such as White-tailed Deer, Moose, Mule Deer, Elk, and Caribou. Reminiscent of Mad Cow Disease, symptoms of the disease include drastic weight loss, stumbling, and other strange behaviour. Although symptoms of the disease can often take more than a year to show, CWD is almost always fatal and there are currently no treatments.

The disease has now been confirmed throughout much of the country, with a recent confirmation in Manitoba leaving Ontario and BC as the only non-maritime hold-outs. Getting animals tested is currently one of the only ways to stop the spread and the government is urging all hunters to get involved.

As we have mentioned in a previous article, there is currently no evidence that humans can contract the disease, however, a study back in 2006 that confirmed Macaque Monkeys could contract the disease through the eating of contaminated meat has led researchers to warn against consuming any meat from ungulates displaying CWD symptoms.

This excerpt was taken from Fish’n Canada’s Week in Review, our weekly recap of all things relevant to the Canadian outdoorsman. For more stories like this, check out the full article below and tune back in every Friday to catch up on everything you missed!