State wildlife officials are upping local harvest quotas for whitetail deer to combat a recent outbreak of chronic wasting disease in the Flathead Valley.

Officials first received reports of a sickly buck at the Flathead County Landfill in October 2024. Samples from the euthanized animal later tested positive for chronic wasting disease, marking the first known occurrence in Hunting District 170, which encompasses most of the Flathead Valley. To date, 17 samples from the district have tested positive for chronic wasting disease, all from whitetail deer that were killed in or around the landfill. 

Even a few localized cases of the disease is cause for concern, said Neil Anderson, the supervisor for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Region 1. 

“It’s different than a lot of diseases,” he said. “It’s established.” 

Both incurable and highly contagious, chronic wasting disease is nearly impossible to eradicate once it has spread to an area. Deer, elk and moose can contract the 100% fatal neurological disease through animal-to-animal contact, including through contact with an infected carcass, as officials believe occurred at the Flathead County Landfill. 

Now, state wildlife officials are focused on minimizing chances for those contacts to occur in the Flathead Valley, thereby stalling the further progression of the disease. Key to that plan, said Anderson, is the hunting community. 

“Hunting is our No. 1 tool for management,” he said.  

To cull local herds to a more manageable size, hunters will have the potential to harvest four whitetail deer from Hunting District 170 this year, up from a potential two in previous years. In addition to a general license, hunters can purchase up to two 170-00 antlerless white-tailed B licenses for the district and an over-the-counter B license for white-tailed deer in the newly established Kalispell Chronic Wasting Disease Management Zone, which extends for about a five-mile radius from the landfill.  

While killing deer to save them may seem counterintuitive, Dillon Tabish, the agency’s regional communication lead, said that immediate reductions in population help offset the chances of much more catastrophic losses from disease in the future. 

“This is really trying to protect the greater herd and protect the greater good,” he said. 

Wildlife managers implemented a similar strategy when chronic wasting disease was detected near Libby in 2019, offering hunters an additional license to harvest whitetail deer from areas surrounding the town. Anderson attributed the increased hunting pressure as one reason disease rates have remained low in rural deer herds, hovering around 3-5%. 

“It’s one of the few places where chronic wasting disease has been found in the state where we haven’t seen a dramatic increase,” he said. 

Increasing the number of deer harvested also gave biologists more opportunities to collect samples and track the spread of the disease. Animals in the early stages of chronic wasting disease often appear healthy; to confirm infection, biologists must extract and test the animal’s lymph nodes. Usually, these samples are obtained from hunters who stop at one of the state’s numerous check stations.  

Anderson is hopeful that, with the additional harvest licenses, biologists will get enough samples from the Kalispell area to paint a clearer picture of the disease and its prevalence in the Flathead Valley.  

“You might think of this year as the fact-finding year,” said Anderson. 

There are no known cases of chronic wasting disease transmission to humans, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention encourage hunters to test all animals from locations where it is known to occur and discourage eating meat from infected animals. Hunters may apply for a replacement tag if a deer they harvest tests positive for chronic wasting disease. 

The Fish and Wildlife Commission will likely vote on whether to mandate testing for deer harvested within the Kalispell Chronic Wasting Disease Management Zone in the coming months.  

Anderson said the agency is also working with the county to construct a fence around the landfill. Hunters throughout the state are encouraged to use carcass disposal sites to help minimize the spread of disease. 

Reporter Hailey Smalley may be reached at 758-4433 or [email protected].