CWD confirmed in Michigan’s Genesee County for the first time

Editor’s note: This story was first published on Sept. 25 and was updated today, Oct. 3.

Muskegon, Mich. — Michigan Department of Natural Resources officials last month confirmed a third deer in 2025 tested positive for chronic wasting disease, this one in Genesee County, marking the 16th county with a positive over the past decade. 

DNR officials received reports from the public about the sick deer, and a responding DNR conservation officer found a very skinny 2.5-year-old doe in Gaines Township that was drinking continuously. The deer walked directly up to the officer with an absence of fear that signals a potential CWD infection. 

A test at Michigan State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory confirmed CWD, and the sample was sent to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Iowa for a secondary confirmation, according to a DNR statement. 

“We really rely on people reporting these sick deer to find it in new areas,” Melinda Cosgrove, laboratory scientist manager for the DNR, told Michigan Outdoor News. 

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The DNR tested about 300 deer in Genesee County as part of focused CWD surveillance in 2022, and none tested positive for the disease. 

That effort was part of a statewide rotational approach to testing of harvested deer that began in 2021 following initial intensive testing near areas of the first CWD detections in Michigan. 

CWD, a fatal neurological disease that affects deer, elk, and moose, was first detected in Michigan’s wild deer population in 2015, and the state has since tested more than 144,000 through surveillance efforts that started in 2022, yielding 263 CWD-positive deer. Another 3,200 samples submitted by hunters since 2020 have produced an additional 56 confirmed positives.

The Gaines Township deer is the first positive in Genessee County, and it follows two others that tested positive this year in Washtenaw and Ionia counties, both involving sick acting deer, Cosgrove said. 

The most recent positive was detected about 30 miles from the next closest detection in Ingham County, she said. 

The Gaines Township deer brings the number of Michigan counties where deer have tested positive to 16, following previous detections in Clinton, Dickinson, Eaton, Gratiot, Hillsdale, Ingham, Ionia, Isabella, Jackson, Kent, Mecosta, Midland, Montcalm, Ogemaw, and Washtenaw counties. 

“We appreciate the support and cooperation of the public as they continue to report sick deer so our team can follow up with the necessary testing for confirmation,” DNR deer, elk and moose specialist Brent Rudolph said in a statement. “Though many reported deer turn out not to be infected, the care that’s demonstrated when people take the time to share their observations is a critical contribution to our disease-testing efforts.”

The statewide rotational testing provided a baseline for CWD in Michigan that gives DNR officials confidence the disease is not widespread in areas it wasn’t previously detected, Cosgrove said. 

“When we find it later … we can be pretty confident it’s at a low level,” she said. 

While only three deer have tested positive in 2025, “the bulk of our surveillance comes in the fall,” Cosgrove said, and the DNR this year eliminated a fee for hunters to submit deer for testing kits that were previously free only in limited areas. 

“This year, we have expanded them statewide,” Cosgrove said. 

The kits allow hunters to remove lymph nodes and ship them directly to the MSU lab at no cost.

“They email the results right back to the submitter,” Cosgrove said. 

There have been no reported cases of CWD in people, but the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises against animals or humans consuming infected animals. 

The DNR provides recommendations for field-dressing and processing deer that includes wearing rubber gloves, minimizing contact with brain and spinal tissue, and washing hands with soap and warm water after handling a carcass. 

The DNR urges hunters to dispose of carcasses at a landfill or through regular bagged trash pickup, and not to leave them on the landscape where they can create a vector for CWD. 

More information on the disease can be found at Michigan.gov/CWD.