As fall begins in Michigan, so does the 2025 deer hunting season. The liberty youth hunt and early antlerless firearm sessions are already behind us, with archery season beginning Oct. 1.
And with that comes warnings from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources about chronic wasting disease (CWD) also known as zombie deer disease. As of the most recent reports, 15 counties across Michigan have had confirmed cases of the disease. Only one of these has been in the upper peninsula.
The only way to fully confirm if a deer has CWD is through testing, even though there are traits that can indicate the disease. To help track the spread of CWD and help hunters who suspect they've harvested a deer with the disease, the DNR is offering free testing kits at different locations across the state.
"Chronic wasting disease can be hard to distinguish from a lot of other illnesses or injuries, but basically in advanced conditions the deer will often be very skinny," explained Brent Rudolph, Michigan DNR deer specialist. "They have neurological disorders. So in other words, they seem unresponsive. You might be able to walk right up to them or they might walk right up to you. Sometimes they might be excessively drooling and their heads down and so forth," he said.
There are no recorded cases of CWD jumping from deer to human, but the CDC still highly recommends that people do not consume any meat from a potentially infected animal as the potential for humans to become infected is still present. The disease is confirmed to spread between different animals.
CWD is always fatal for an infected animal. According to Rudolph, almost 110,000 people have already purchased deer licenses for 2025, up 6.94% from this time last year.
More information on deer hunting season and how to test and report harvests can be found at Michigan.gov/Deer
We note the Michigan Department of Natural Resources is a financial supporter of WCMU. We report on them as we do with any other organization.
