The Illinois Department of Natural Resources will temporarily pause public meetings throughout northern and west-central Illinois this fall as it prepares materials outlining changes to the state's chronic wasting disease program, the agency announced Friday.

IDNR said it is refining its CWD management strategy after deciding in spring 2026 to discontinue targeted deer removal, also known as sharpshooting, statewide.

The department said staff will resume public meetings in fall 2027 to discuss the future direction of the CWD program and answer questions about the disease. IDNR said landowners, hunters and other concerned citizens are encouraged to attend.

Mail-in testing kits for hunters

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, the agency said. 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 more as needed if they harvest additional deer. According to IDNR, kits can be requested online at huntillinois.org/cwd-sampling or by contacting a local district wildlife biologist through wildlifeillinois.org.

About the disease

CWD is a fatal disease of the central nervous system that affects deer and elk, IDNR said. The disease was first detected in Illinois in 2002 in a suspect adult female deer from northwestern Boone County.

Since then, the agency said, 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 said it identified 662 CWD-positive deer in 28 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 at dnr.illinois.gov/programs/cwd.html. For more information about the meetings or CWD, the public can contact Chris Jacques, IDNR wildlife disease program manager.

Source: the original release