Wisconsin confirmed chronic wasting disease in a wild deer in Marinette County for the first time last week, a 3-year-old buck found near Peshtigo that was humanely put down after it showed signs of illness. The detection extends Marinette County's existing baiting and feeding ban for another three years. It lands four weeks before the nine-day gun season opens on November 21.
The headline is the county. The number underneath it is the one that tells you where this is going: as of July, 60 of Wisconsin's 72 counties were already classified as CWD-affected under state rules.
What the detection changes
Wisconsin's rule is mechanical, which makes it easy to read. When CWD is found in a county, state law requires a three-year baiting and feeding ban in that county, plus a two-year ban in any adjoining county within 10 miles of the detection.
| What | Status after the Peshtigo detection |
|---|---|
| Marinette County baiting and feeding ban | Extended three more years |
| Bans in neighboring counties | Unchanged by this detection |
| Counties classified CWD-affected (July 2026) | 60 of 72 |
| Gun deer season | Nov. 21–29 |
| Muzzleloader | Nov. 30 – Dec. 9 |
Marinette already had a ban in place from earlier nearby detections, so for a hunter there, the practical change this fall is close to zero. What changes is the clock: the ban now runs three more years from this case, and the county moves from being next to the disease to having it.
What it does not change
It does not close a season, change a bag limit, or shut down any land. Your gun buck authorization works the same way it did a week ago. Bans in adjacent counties are not extended by this case, according to the DNR.
It also does not tell you much about how many deer in Marinette are infected. One positive from a sick deer is a detection, not a prevalence estimate. The number that would tell you that comes from hunter-submitted samples, and this season is when those get collected.
Michigan, the same week
Across the border, Michigan's Department of Agriculture and Rural Development announced on October 20 that CWD had been confirmed in a farmed cervid in Hillsdale County, found October 5 through the state's surveillance program. State law keeps MDARD from saying what species it was. Michigan has had farmed-herd detections before, in Calhoun, Kent, Lake, Mackinac, Mecosta, Montcalm, Newaygo and Osceola counties.
A farmed detection is a different event from a wild one. It triggers an investigation into what animals moved in and out of that facility rather than a baiting ban. But for southern Michigan hunters near the Indiana and Ohio lines, it is the first one in that corner of the state, and it is worth knowing about before you decide where to take a deer for processing. We covered the broader shift in what changed for CWD state by state this season.
What to do with your deer
Get it tested if you are anywhere near a detection. Wisconsin runs sampling kiosks and cooperating processors, and testing is how the DNR learns whether Peshtigo was an outlier. If your deer tests positive during a regular season, the DNR issues a replacement harvest authorization through your Go Wild account. That replacement is not weapon-specific.
Register by 5 p.m. the day after you recover the deer, and use the DNR's carcass dumpsters for heads, spines and trimmings rather than leaving them on the property. Prions persist in soil, plants and water, which is the whole reason disposal rules exist. If you are moving a deer across a state line, check the destination state's carcass import rules before you leave; our 2026 field-dressing and carcass rules guide walks through the common ones.
Processing matters more in a CWD county, not because a knife will save you, but because a clean boning job keeps the high-risk tissue, spinal column and brain, out of the meat. A dedicated skinning blade and a separate boning knife are the simplest way to do that without cross-contaminating. Something like the Mora/Frosts stiff-blade skinner for the hide and the Mora curved boning knife for taking meat off the bone covers it, and you can see the rest of what we carry in knives and tools. Keep them separate from your kitchen set until they have been cleaned and disinfected. The CDC's guidance, repeated in MDARD's release, is that deer from CWD-positive animals should not be eaten by people or pets.
What to watch
The first useful data point arrives after the gun season, when the DNR reports how many samples came out of Marinette and the adjacent units and whether any more were positive. A single sick buck is a warning light. A handful of positives from hunter-harvested deer is a trend.
For the rest of the season, the gun opener lines up with the tail of breeding activity in the north. If you are planning your sits, our rut timing piece lays out where Wisconsin's peak typically falls, and the Wisconsin rut jacket guide covers the cold.
Sources: Wisconsin DNR via WLUK/Fox 11, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Q106; Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (Oct. 20, 2026); WLNS.