Illinois Historic Preservation Agency
10/15/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 10/16/2026 11:51
IDNR to pause chronic wasting disease public informational meetings across northern and central Illinois for fall 2026
SPRINGFIELD - The Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) will temporarily pause public meetings throughout northern and west-central Illinois this fall to prepare materials outlining changes to the state's chronic wasting disease (CWD) program goals, objectives and future disease surveillance strategies.
The department is refining its CWD management strategy following its decision in spring 2026 to discontinue targeted deer removal, also known as sharpshooting, statewide.
IDNR staff will resume public meetings in fall 2027 to discuss the future direction of the CWD program and answer questions about the disease, as CWD remains an important issue and will continue to be a priority in future deer management discussions in Illinois. Landowners, hunters and other concerned citizens are encouraged to attend.
Beginning in fall 2026, IDNR will offer voluntary mail-in sampling kits for hunters who want to collect lymph nodes from adult deer for CWD testing. Kits will be available on a first-come, first-served basis while supplies last. Hunters may request up to two kits at a time and can request additional kits as needed if they harvest more deer. Hunters can request mail-in sampling kits online or by contacting their local district wildlife biologist .
CWD is a fatal disease of the central nervous system that affects deer and elk. The disease was first detected in Illinois in 2002 in a suspect adult female deer from northwestern Boone County. Since then, 199,136 wild deer have been sampled statewide, and 3,410 deer have tested positive for CWD. The disease has been detected in 28 counties across northern and central Illinois.
From July 1, 2025, through June 30, 2026, IDNR identified 662 CWD-positive deer in 28 Illinois counties: Adams, Boone, Bureau, Carroll, Cook, DeKalb, DuPage, Effingham, Ford, Grundy, Jo Daviess, Kane, Kankakee, Kendall, Lake, LaSalle, Lee, Livingston, Marshall, McHenry, Ogle, Peoria, Putnam, Scott, Stark, Stephenson, Will and Winnebago. Annual CWD reports are available online .
For more information about the meetings or CWD, contact Chris Jacques, IDNR wildlife disease program manager, at [email protected] .
Illinois Historic Preservation Agency published this content on October 15, 2026, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via Public Technologies (PUBT), unedited and unaltered, on October 16, 2026 at 17:51 UTC. If you believe the information included in the content is inaccurate or outdated and requires editing or removal, please contact us at [email protected]