By Micah Drew DAILY MONTANAN
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials established a new Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) Management Zone comprising Hunting District 170 in the Flathead Valley.
Announced last week, the new zone increases hunting opportunities in a management area centered on the Flathead County landfill north of Kalispell. It follows the detection of CWD in white-tailed deer for the first time in the hunting district in October of last year.
In early October 2024, FWP officials received reports of a symptomatic buck near the Flathead County landfill and euthanized the animal. Initial and followup CWD testing returned a positive result.
The disease always results in death for infected animals and there is no known cure.
“By implementing this CWD Management Zone and increasing harvest opportunities, we aim to reduce local deer density and curb the potential spread of this disease,” Franz Ingelfinger, an FWP wildlife biologist, said in a press release. “Hunting is the primary tool for monitoring and managing the spread of CWD, and we appreciate hunters helping us take an aggressive, localized approach to this.”
Chronic Wasting Disease affects members of the deer family, including elk, moose, mule deer, and white-tailed deer and is caused by a malformed prion protein. Symptomatic animals can exhibit neurological and behavioral changes and emaciation.
Within the new management zone, which has a roughly five-mile radius around the landfill, hunters can purchase an over-the-counter B license for white-tailed deer. Hunters are limited to one license, valid through archery, general, heritage muzzleloader and late season, with no overall quote on the new license.
FWP is also increasing the number of 170-00 antlerless white-tailed B licenses available per hunter from one to two, valid throughout Hunting District 170.
In a press release, FWP officials said they aim to assess the prevalence and extent of CWD in the area while reducing local deer density to slow the disease’s spread and prevalence in the area. All hunters are encouraged to get harvested animals sampled for CWD.
The detection of CWD at the landfill underscores the urgency of localized management, according to the press release. The management zone is strategically designed to focus harvest around the point of detection while minimizing impact on migratory deer populations wintering west of the Stillwater River, a natural geographic barrier or deer wintering on the Ray Kuhns Wildlife Management Area, which closes Dec. 1.
During the 2024-2025 hunting season, FWP submitted a record 9,066 samples for CWD testing. Of those samples, 335 tested positive for CWD — 202 white-tailed deer, 127 mule deer and six elk.
