New York Confirms First Wild Deer CWD Case Since 2005, Orders Testing in Six Livingston County Towns

New York has its first chronic wasting disease (CWD) case in a wild deer since 2005, and hunters in six Livingston County towns must now submit every deer they take for testing. The Department of Environmental Conservation said in a release on November 6, 2026 that an adult female white-tailed deer harvested in the Town of Sparta tested positive at Cornell University’s state veterinary diagnostic laboratory, with confirmation under way at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, Iowa. The sample came from DEC’s statewide annual surveillance program.

That detection triggers the state’s CWD Response Plan, written with the Department of Agriculture and Markets. DEC has drawn a containment area covering Conesus, Groveland, North Dansville, Sparta, Springwater and West Sparta, and says it may expand it if more positives turn up. Inside that area every harvested deer needs a tissue sample, whole deer may not leave, and a DEC transport permit is required to take a deer to a processor or taxidermist outside the boundary. Collection stations open November 12, and hunters who take a deer before then are told to save the head and email the department. Hunters whose deer test positive will be asked to hand over the venison for disposal.

The department’s CWD page lists the emergency rules it is putting in place under 6 NYCRR Part 189: no movement of carcasses or high-risk parts such as brain, spinal cord, spleen and eyes out of the area, no possession of road-killed deer there, no collection or sale of deer urine, feces or glandular products from the area, no rehabilitation of deer from or within it, and no composting or rendering of carcasses, which instead go double-bagged into municipal waste or DEC dumpsters. Hunters can keep their venison but are told not to eat it until results come back. Locations of check stations, head bins, dumpsters and cooperating processors will be posted once set. The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department’s reminder of November 10 adds that a hunter crossing into Vermont with a deer from New York may bring only boneless or packaged meat, a clean skull cap with antlers, a cape with no head attached or a finished mount, with a fine of up to $1,000 and a one-year license loss for each animal brought in illegally.

DEC’s response plan, adopted with the agriculture department in February 2026 calls for an initial response area of a half mile to 10 miles around the index animal, a sampling goal of 40 to 300 wild deer, and added surveillance for one or more years. DEC has tested more than 70,000 wild deer since monitoring began in 2002. The only earlier wild cases came in Oneida County in 2005, alongside a captive herd, and a captive red deer herd in southern Herkimer County tested positive in 2024, where hunters in five Herkimer County towns and one Otsego County town can still drop heads in collection bins for a chance at a lifetime license.

“CWD is a very persistent disease that can spread in several ways,” said John Austin, Vermont’s director of wildlife, in the Vermont release. CWD has not been found in Vermont. Guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is against eating venison from any deer known to carry the disease, and DEC says there is no evidence of transmission to people, dogs, cats or livestock other than deer, moose and elk. Hunters elsewhere in New York can pay Cornell’s wildlife health lab to test a deer.

Timing matters for the firearms season. DEC’s October season release puts early bowhunting in most of the Southern Zone at October 1 through November 20, with the regular firearms season following. DEC will hold a public webinar on the detection on November 17 at 7 p.m. and says in-person sessions in Livingston County will be scheduled. Confirmation from the federal laboratory, any further positives and the containment area’s final boundary are expected in the weeks after the November 12, 2026 start of sampling.