INFORMATIONAL MEETING ON CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE AUG. 16

  

An informational meeting will be held next month for Washington County landowners to learn more about chronic wasting disease (CWD) and what steps are being taken to protect other area wildlife after the county’s first case was discovered earlier this year. 

The meeting, hosted by the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department (TPWD), will take place on August 16^th from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Washington County Expo Event Center in Brenham.

Meeting topics will cover what CWD is, how surveillance zones are implemented and the rules they carry, and where testing samples can be submitted for analysis.  Attendees will be able to ask questions in a Q&A session. 

In March, a case of CWD was confirmed in a white-tailed deer at a deer-breeding facility on the north side of the county.  TPWD has not shared the specific location of where the case was discovered.

The prion disease severely impedes a deer’s neurological function and is ultimately fatal.  Right now, there is no evidence that it can affect humans, but wildlife experts recommend not eating meat from infected animals. 

Earlier this month, county commissioners decided on a location for a temporary drop box site to collect samples to be tested for CWD.  It will be set up in the large parking lot on Blue Bell Road between the constable headquarters and the Exxon station at the corner of Blue Bell Road and Highway 105.  The site will open in late September, following the county fair, and close in mid-January. 

Anyone who harvests wildlife within a 2-mile surveillance zone around the area of the first confirmed case will be required to submit samples, but any landowner wishing to get a sample tested can do so.

(Editor's note 7/31/23: Texas Parks & Wildlife has provided the image below to illustrate where the mandatory testing zone for chronic wasting disease will be.)