Upticks In Deer Hunting Harvest, Positive CWD Detections In Minnesota For 2025

The Minnesota DNR just released the final statistics for the 2025 deer hunting season, which includes both firearms and archery numbers.

In that data, it is revealed that Minnesota saw an uptick in both deer harvested by hunters and an increase in the total number of cases of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) detected in the state.

Here's a region-by-region look at how the deer hunt was around Minnesota, as well as where CWD cases were most prevalent.

CWD Detections Increased In 2025 - What To Know

One of the statistics the Minnesota DNR highlighted was an increase in the overall number of detected cases of Chronic Wasting Disease in 2025 when compared to the year prior.

CWD is a fatal neurological disease that impacts animals like deer. While there are no known instances of CWD impacting humans, the CDC recommends that people not eat deer with CWD. The disease has been detected in deer in a handful of different areas across Minnesota over recent years.

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In 2025, hunters contributed a total of 14,000 samples for CWD testing, which works out to a little more than 7% of the total deer harvested through the year. Most of those samples came during the opening weekend of firearms deer season.

These provided samples are crucial to the Minnesota DNR's tracking of CWD, as live animals cannot be tested for the disease. Hunters providing samples for testing is the largest method by which the DNR gets samples.

Of those samples, a total of 117 deer tested positive for the disease, which is a little more than 8% of the deer samples collected. All but one of those deer was harvested in an existing CWD management zone, where the disease has previously been detected.

Most of the positive detections were from Southeastern Minnesota, including the only detection outside of an existing CWD zone. IT was a buck harvested in deer permit area 285, about 30 miles from other zones in Southern Minnesota, where there were positive detections in 2024.

Those 117 positive detections are an uptick in the total number of deer the Minnesota DNR confirmed through testing over 2024, when 96 harvested deer tested positive. That is an increase over 2023, when there were 63 deer found to have CWD.

The increase in CWD detections closely matches the total number of deer harvested in 2025.

Deer Harvest Numbers In 2025 Increase

The Minnesota DNR says the overall number of deer harvested in 2025 was up 9% over the 2024 season, with a total of 186,203 deer between the various firearms and archery seasons in the state. It is also 5% higher than the 5-year harvest average in Minnesota.

Northeastern Minnesota saw one of the largest increases in harvested deer, with a 14% increase over 2024. Hunters have complained of low deer numbers in recent years, but this points to the population rebounding.

Northwestern Minnesota also saw a large jump in the number of deer harvested, up 9% in 2025 over 2024.

Elsewhere around the state, the Minnesota DNR reports an 8% increase in harvested deer for 2025 in Central and Southeastern Minnesota, and 6% increase in Southwestern Minnesota.

In all, the Minnesota DNR says hunters benefited from stable or growing populations around the state and overall favorable conditions for hunting in 2025.