The Pennsylvania Game Commission recently used sharpshooters to cull deer in southern Luzerne County and a portion of Carbon County where chronic wasting disease was recently discovered.
The Game Commission has been working with personnel from USDA’s Wildlife Services to remove deer in the areas after receiving approval from 20 private landowners.
The use of sharpshooters to conduct a targeted removal of deer is outlined in the agency’s Chronic Wasting Disease Response Plan — approved in July 2020 — as a management option in high-priority areas. The measure allows the agency to harvest deer for increased testing along with reducing the population with the intent of slowing the spread of the disease.
The agency has used sharpshooters to remove deer in other areas of the state where the CWD has been found. The recent removal program in the northeast stems from two cases that mark the first time the disease was confirmed in the area. A deer taken during the 2024 rifle season in Sugarloaf Twp. was confirmed positive in January, and a second deer found dead in Packer Twp., Carbon County, tested positive on Feb. 12. In addition, CWD was also detected in a captive animal on a deer farm in southern Luzerne County. All three positive cases in the region involved adult males.
Game Commission Communication Director Travis Lau said the agency typically relies on hunters to harvest deer to assess the prevalence of and reduce the spread once chronic wasting disease is found in an area.
The cases in Carbon and Luzerne counties weren’t confirmed until after the major hunting seasons had occurred, so the agency couldn’t use regular hunters in this instance.
Lau said the sharpshooters’ work had a cut-off date of April 15, which is also the final day of the Ag Tag season. The harvest method utilized for the removal was suppressed firearms.
All harvested deer were tested and donated to Hunters Sharing the Harvest or local people who requested venison, he added. Several area processors reported receiving deer from the Game Commission that were taken under the sharpshooter program.
As of April 16, the Game Commission tested 175 deer harvested under the program and none tested positive for the disease. Lau said he didn’t yet know the number of deer that were harvested during the program, but the agency had no specific goal in mind. A final harvest figure will be released in October or November when the agency releases its annual report on CWD.
“USDA Wildlife Services professionals work with landowners to remove as many deer as possible that may have been exposed to the CWD-infected deer,” he said.
Lau said a cost of contract with USDA Wildlife Services for the work wasn’t yet available, and the expense varies based on location, travel and number of deer taken. The final cost is expected to be known in July, he said.
In addition to harvesting deer, the agency is sampling all roadkill deer in the area of the recent cases to gauge the prevalence of the disease.
While there were landowners who agreed to let sharpshooters on their property to remove deer, Lau said the exact locations aren’t disclosed.
“In the past, there have been instances where the prospect for targeted removals created hostile and threatening situations for landowners and professionals, so we consider it important to conduct operations with respect for landowner privacy,” Lau said.
Although hunting season is months away, the Game Commission board recently approved a measure intending to increase the deer harvest in the area. During the April 12 quarterly board meeting in Harrisburg, commissioner Stanley Knick of Duryea introduced an amendment to add Wildlife Management Unit 4C to the extended antlerless firearms season, joining WMUs 4A, 4D and 5A. Knick said the move was in response to the recent CWD cases in Luzerne and Carbon counties, located in the northern part of WMU 4C.
“I’d like to get a handle on this and knock the prevalence down before it goes too far,” he said.
The extended firearms season is for antlerless deer and will run from Jan.2-19, 2026. Even though an extended season will now be in place in response to the CWD cases, the Game Commission did reduce the antlerless license allocation slightly in WMU 4C, from 53,000 last season to 51,000 for 2025-2026.
TOM VENESKY is a freelance outdoors writer. Contact him at veneskyoutdoors.com.
