Texas ‘Ghost Deer’ Suspect Facility Tests Positive For CWD
Two deer tested positive at a Tom Green County facility owned by prominent breeder Ken Schlaudt.
Two captive whitetails tied to the Texas “ghost deer” investigation tested positive for chronic wasting disease at a Tom Green County facility owned by breeder Ken Schlaudt, according to records obtained by Public Domain. Texas officials confirmed the news in a press release Thursday.
Texas is home to a small but profitable industry of deer breeders who raise trophy whitetails in captivity, then move or sell them to high-fenced game ranches for paying hunters to shoot, at prices that can stretch past $15,000. That industry has been plagued by recurring and unexplained outbreaks of CWD since 2021.
State game officials accuse a network of two dozen people of selling captive deer on the black market and poaching wild ones to falsify CWD tests over the last three years as part of a systematic effort to skirt disease-containment rules.
The tests appeared to confirm conservationists’ fears since the ghost deer cases first became public in February — that the alleged evasion of CWD-containment rules could facilitate the spread of the disease.
“These intentional acts jeopardize the health and wellbeing of every deer in the state by circumventing the laws in place to prevent the spread of CWD,” Col. Ronald VanderRoest, TPWD Law Enforcement Director, said in a press release. “Preventing scenarios like this is why these requirements exist in the first place, and underscores why Texas Game Wardens diligently investigated this case and will continue to enforce these regulations.”
A breeder and the owner of the 1,500-acre Rockin’ S Ranch outside San Angelo, Schlaudt is the most prominent suspect in the ghost deer case. He served on the board of the Texas Deer Association, the lobbying group for breeder interests, until Texas Parks and Wildlife Department made public the allegations against him in August.
Schlaudt and his ranch manager, Bill Bowers, face felony charges in Travis County for allegedly tampering with government records, and more than 100 deer-related misdemeanors in Tom Green County.
Texas wildlife officials detected several problems with four facilities owned by Schlaudt, according to a letter informing him that his captive deer herd would be euthanized by Sept. 15. Fifty-one deer had been transferred among his facilities without the required documentation or live CWD testing, the letter said. Eleven deer had errors or mismatches between their dangling ear tags and implanted electronic IDs, with some carrying tags of animals reported to the state as dead. Two deer were not registered at all.
“Due to these various violations, blatant intentional disregard for regulations, and concerns surrounding the CWD status of the facility, it has been determined that the deer present in the facility pose a disease threat due to lack of location history information, CWD exposure, and intentional falsification of post-mortem sampling,” the letter says. “As a result, all deer will be confiscated by the Department and submitted for post-mortem CWD and TB testing.”
Two of the euthanized deer tested positive for CWD on Oct. 27. Tuberculosis was not detected in any of them.
State regulations barred Schlaudt from moving captive deer since at least last year, after receiving CWD-exposed animals from another facility, the records show. But he attempted to sell several whitetail deer on the black market for $65,000 last year, according to Travis County court records previously reported by Public Domain.
“Due to negligent recordkeeping and intentional testing violations associated with Schlaudt’s facility, it is unknown exactly how many CWD-exposed deer have been moved or what other ranches and facilities across the state may be affected,” Texas Parks and Wildlife Department wrote in Thursday’s press release.
Wildlife biologists widely regard CWD as one of the most serious threats to herds of wild cervids — a family of animals that includes deer, elk, moose and caribou. The contagious disease causes proteins called prions to misfold, leading to a prolonged death by neurodegeneration. Game officials have so far failed to remove the disease from wild populations once it gets a foothold.