Does SD have their results from CDW for hunting year of 2025? Montana is in with ~9000 tested with 456 tested positive ~5% positive. I see North Dakota is in also with ~1% positive with ~1800 tested.

Does South Dakota have any data or have any numbers for 2025 hunting season.

No clue they tested my elk and notified me it was negative but I’m not sure what they do with the deer.

This came out last year it might be a indication of how low the deer populations are in a large portion of the state now. 10 years ago you could get a lot of doe tags for gun and archery. If other states think reducing the heard helps curb the problem we are already there it looks like. Mule deer have dropped in numbers also so it bleak at this time.

Again, there's very little outreach from the state agency leadership to the public, although to be fair, I really don't follow it all that much because I haven't really tried too hard to deer hunt for a good while.

South Dakota doesn't have huge amounts of deer compared to most of the eastern and southern states. The first East River season was in 1949 and until the 1980s, a non-landowner (needed to own 160 or more acres) could only get an East River firearm license every 3 years. I had my first gun deer license when I was 13 in 1975 and shot my first rifle year when I was a senior in high school in 1980.

We enjoyed boom years in the later 1980s through the 2010s but now, as Law Dog has shown, very little doe harvest is allowed in the southeast quadrant of the state.

As long as GF&P can peddle pheasants to people, deer are only a secondary revenue source for them.

Thanks.
Wyoming just checked it ~5200 tested ~746 tested positive a 13.7% of tested deer.

This year the only elk that were tested would have been collared cows (research animals) and anyone that wanted to do a voluntary test on there harvested elk or deer. Nothing mandatory for other elk or deer. We were typically running around 11% of the deer and elk harvested in the South Black Hills.

I believe most the states that border Montana have only volunteer testing, also. So, SD has an 11% positive rate of the number of animals that got tested, is that what you are saying?

Thanks for that info.

Ky had 2 cases out of 9,475 tested. 1 was pen raised deer

In past years around 11% in the Southern Black Hills (Custer South). The stuff that boarders MT is way lower than that. I don’t think there was enough testing done this year to determine much.

arcticotter >> Thanks

MT worse areas are all along Canadian border Wyoming border counties.

If you guys don't want your deer, send em to me.

Nothing to send you in my county they are slow bouncing back from the die offs.