Category: Chronic Wasting Disease

Posted on

One Small Protein Worth a Whole Herd of Trouble: prion disease advantage in Illinois white-tailed deer

By Evan London, Trisha Mendoza, Tooba Latif, Nelda A. Rivera 

“After 20 years of research, a light of hope appears in the story of CWD: the genetic variation in the prion protein gene (PRNP).”

Figure 2: Inherited via DNA information from parents, each deer is born with one of the two possible prion protein variants sharing the same function. Those protein variants can be A, C, or F. (Illustration by Trisha Mendoza, Wildlife Veterinary Epidemiology Laboratory – INHS).

For more details about the recent study published by London et al., 2026, in the journal Veterinary Research, visit the Illinois Outdoor Journal [Here].

The study: London, E.W., Roca, A.L., Ishida, Y., Latif, T., Novakofski, J.E. and Mateus-Pinilla, N.E., 2026. Odocoileus virginianus PRNP sequencing reveals AF (Q95G96/H95G96) advantage over AC (Q95G96/Q95S96) against chronic wasting disease. Veterinary Research, 57(1), p.84. [PDF]

Posted on

Maternal Infection with Chronic Wasting Disease Reduces Fetal Head Size

By Jameson Mori, Nelda A. Rivera, and Nohra Mateus-Pinilla

Figure 2. Diagram of fetal head dimensions (Mori et al., 2026).

CHAMPAIGN, IL. – A new study published in the Journal Prion provides insights into an additional impact of chronic wasting disease (CWD) infection, as a reduce fetal head development could have long-term consequences for the newborn and the herd overall. For more details on what researchers found, check the article published in the May Issue of the Outdoor Illinois Journal here.

The study: Mori, J., Perez-Girones, S. V., Latif, T., Rivera, N., Skinner, D., Schlichting, P., Novakofski, J., Mateus-Pinilla, N. (2026). Maternal chronic wasting disease infection restricts fetal head size in white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). Prion, 20(1), 18–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/19336896.2026.2635296 [PDF]

Posted on

Deer land cover utility (LCU) score datasets (TRS, township, and county)

Photo by L. Brian Stauffer.

This dataset contains white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) land cover utility score (deer LCU score) data for every TRS (township, range, and section), township-range, and county in Illinois, USA, based on annual National Land Cover Database (NLCD) data released for all years between 2000 and 2023. LCU data is provided in CSV files for each spatial scale, with TRS data split into 2 CSV files due to size limits. Rasters (TIF) showing all deer habitat in Illinois are also provided to show the location, quality, and quantity of deer habitat. A metadata file is also included for additional information.

Cite this data set: Mori, Jameson (2025): Deer land cover utility (LCU) score datasets (TRS, township, and county). University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. https://doi.org/10.13012/B2IDB-0160590_V3

For more details about the data set, visit Illinois Data Bank, University of Illinois Champaign Library website.

Posted on

Why Are Deer So Successful in Illinois?

By Jameson Mori and Nelda A. Rivera

There are many important factors related to the success of deer in Illinois, and deer habitat is one of them. In this article, the authors explain how measuring deer habitat can help answer this important question: Why are deer so successful in Illinois?.

“One look at this map will tell you that Illinois has a lot of deer habitat, and good deer habitat, too.”

Read the whole story in the Illinois Outdoor Journal here.

Posted on

Legend or Reality: Breaking the code of CWD myths

By Nelda A. Rivera and Nohra Mateus-Pinilla

“You may have heard about chronic wasting disease, or CWD, and wondered what causes it, who is affected, and what is happening to the white-tailed deer in Illinois. Here, we will decode CWD and discuss common and confusing myths about prion diseases, particularly CWD.”

Figure 3. Concentration of CWD pathogen (PrPSc) in different tissues (Credit: Nelda A. Rivera, Wildlife Veterinary Epidemiology Laboratory – INHS – PRI).

Read the whole story in the Illinois Outdoor Journal here.

Posted on

COVID-19 and wildlife: an interdisciplinary effort to disease surveillance in deer.

By Joey He | Undergraduate majoring in integrative biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

COVID sampling team — we were cold but happy and thankful for the experience and the learning opportunity from hunters, IDNR and USDA biologists, and colleagues.

CHAMPAIGN, lL. – Joey He, an undergrad student member of the Wildlife Veterinary Epidemiology Laboratory (WVEL) at the Illinois Natural History Survey, narrates her experience participating in the collaborative effort of the WVEL along with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) and USDA-WS to collect COVID samples from hunter-harvested white-tailed deer.

For the complete story, please visit the Illinois Outdoor Journal, here.
Posted on

Impact of CWD on Fetal Growth and Pregnancy Rates in Illinois White-tailed Deer

By Jameson Mori, Nelda A. Rivera, Jan Novakofski and Nohra E. Mateus-Pinilla

Deer behavior that may impact indirect transmission and exposure to CWD from an infected habitat (Tian et al., 2022). Photos: Key Deer by W. Tipton; Fawn with Mother by USFWS Midwest region.

CHAMPAIGN, IL – Understanding the role of diseases on reproduction is essential for safeguarding the reproductive health of wildlife populations. Furthermore, it enables informed decision-making, effective interventions, and targeted approaches to support reproductive health. In the article Impact of CWD on Fetal Growth and Pregnancy Rates in Illinois White-tailed Deer, Mori et al. summarize the latest research and their results related to the effect of CWD on Illinois white-tailed deer reproductive health.

For the complete story, please visit the Illinois Outdoor Journal, here.

Posted on

Occurrence of Hemorrhagic Disease in Illinois: Four Decades of Spatial and Temporal Changes

By Dr. Nelda A. Rivera, Dr. Nohra Mateus-Pinilla, and Dr. Jan Novakofski
HD outbreaks in white-tailed deer in the U.S. are usually seasonal, occurring from mid-summer to late autumn. The year 1998 was the first year with 163 reported HD cases in 16 counties in Illinois. In 2018, the number of HD cases reported was 462, and by 2019, 99 counties had reported cases in Illinois. Panel B modified from Dorak et al., 2022.

CHAMPAIGN, IL – In a recent study, 38 years of historical data were used to analyze Illinois’s spatial and temporal changes in Hemorrhagic disease (HD) affecting wild white-tailed deer.

“The results of Dorak et al. (2022) corroborate the importance of expanding surveillance efforts, collecting precise geographic locations during outbreaks, and the vital role of virus isolation in helping wildlife agencies understand and predict HD outbreaks and better inform the public.”

Read the whole story at the Outdoor Illinois Wildlife Journal, here.

Posted on

CWD Management in Illinois: Improving Turnaround Time

By Nelda A. Rivera, Nohra Mateus-Pinilla, William M. Brown.

“Some advantages of including the ELISA test are that ELISA uses fresh tissue, eliminating exposure to Formaldehyde for those taking and processing the samples. Furthermore, fresh samples can be shipped frozen and stored in less expensive containers (e.g., Whirl-Pak bags). Thus, they require less storage space and, therefore, reduce shipping costs. In addition, ELISA typically has a 4-day turnaround for results depending on the capacity of the diagnostic laboratory.”

During FY 2021, most of the samples received were processed within the first two weeks after the kill date. Therefore, there was a higher percentage of all the samples with completed test results by weeks 10 to 12 (Figure 3; Table 2).

CHAMPAIGN, IL – During the fiscal year 2021, the IDNR surveillance management program—in partnership with Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory and the University of Missouri Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory—, improved the turnaround time of results of CWD by using a combination of ELISA test (for large-scale hunter harvest surveillance) and Immunohistochemistry (for “special permit surveillance” from IDNR and “suspect deer surveillance”).

 

Read the whole story at the Outdoor Illinois Wildlife Journal, here.