Biology · CER Practice · Unit 1 · Characteristics of Life

Not Alive, and Spreading: Chronic Wasting Disease in Virginia's Deer

Biology #11 SOL BIO.3, BIO.4, BIO.1 · one sheet, front and back

In May 2026 the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources reported that of more than 7,800 deer tested during the 2025–26 season, 126 came back positive for chronic wasting disease. Every positive animal was inside a Disease Management Area, and one of those areas includes Prince William County. Something is moving through Virginia's deer herd and killing the animals it enters. That something fails most of the eight tests you used in class to sort the living from the non-living.

What the surveillance found

Chronic wasting disease was confirmed in a Virginia deer for the first time in 2009, in Frederick County. It has not left. In the 2025–26 season Frederick County alone accounted for 60 of the state's 126 positives; Loudoun had 11, Clarke 10, Shenandoah 9, and Fauquier and Floyd 7 each. DWR now runs four Disease Management Areas, and Prince William sits inside DMA 2 along with Fairfax, Fauquier, Loudoun, Culpeper, Madison, Orange, Page, Rappahannock, Rockingham and Arlington. An infected deer loses weight over months, stops responding normally to people and predators, and dies. There is no treatment and no vaccine.

What is actually spreading

The agent is not a bacterium and not a virus. It is a prion: a protein the deer's own body already makes, folded into the wrong shape. Deer normally carry a harmless version of this protein on the surface of their nerve cells. When a misfolded copy touches a normal one, the normal one refolds to match. That copy then refolds the next one. Nothing is read from a genetic blueprint and nothing is built from raw materials. A shape spreads through proteins that were already there, the way a crease spreads through folded paper.

The misfolded proteins clump together, nerve cells die, and microscopic holes open in the brain tissue. Prions leave the animal in saliva, urine and feces, and they remain infectious in soil for years. Heat that would sterilize a surgical instrument does not destroy them.

Running it through all eight tests

This is where the eight characteristics earn their keep. A prion spreads, and spreading looks like reproduction. The amount of it goes up, and that looks like growth. Neither is enough. A prion is not made of cells. It carries no DNA and no universal genetic code. It obtains no energy and runs no metabolism at all. It holds no internal balance, because it has no inside. Table 1 runs three Virginia specimens through the eight tests side by side. Read down the columns before you write anything.

Table 1. Three Virginia specimens against the eight characteristics of life.
Characteristic	White-tailed deer	Shed antler	CWD prion
Made up of cells	yes	no	no
Reproduction	yes	no	appears to — see reading
Growth and development	yes	no	amount increases only
Universal genetic code	yes	no	no
Obtain and use energy	yes	no	no
Respond to the environment	yes	no	no
Maintain homeostasis	yes	no	no
Evolve and adapt	yes	no	strains shift — see item 5

Prion: A misfolded protein that forces normal copies of the same protein to misfold.
Metabolism: All the chemical reactions an organism uses to build up and break down materials.
Homeostasis: Keeping conditions inside an organism steady while conditions outside change.
Dormant: Alive but inactive, with life processes slowed almost to a stop.
Universal genetic code: The DNA instruction system shared by all cellular life on Earth.

Sources: Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources, Chronic Wasting Disease program pages and 2025–26 surveillance results (7,800+ deer tested, 126 positives, county totals, Disease Management Area boundaries, first Virginia detection in Frederick County in 2009); S. B. Prusiner, "Novel proteinaceous infectious particles cause scrapie," Science, 1982, for the prion concept; standard references on PrP misfolding, environmental persistence and prion strains. Eight characteristics of life as taught in class. SOL codes to confirm against the current Curriculum Framework.

Practice: Claim, Evidence, Reasoning

Claim: one sentence that answers the question and could be shown wrong. Evidence: a number, a row of Table 1, or a line from the reading. Reasoning: the characteristic that ties them together.

Claim only
A shed antler is lying in the woods in Prince William County. It was part of a living deer last winter. Write a claim stating whether the antler itself is living, dormant, or non-living.

Claim
Full CER · from the data
Using Table 1, decide whether the CWD prion is alive. Your evidence must name at least two characteristics from the table and what the prion does for each.

Claim

Evidence

Reasoning
Full CER · from the reading
A classmate says the 126 positive deer prove the prion is reproducing the same way bacteria reproduce. Decide whether the reading supports that claim.

Claim

Evidence

Reasoning
Mastery · new situation
A wildfire moves through Shenandoah National Park. It grows, consumes fuel, spreads when the wind shifts, and goes out when the rain comes. Decide whether the fire is alive.

Claim

Evidence

Reasoning

What would change my mind
Advanced Biology only
Prion strains differ in shape and cause different disease patterns, and inside one host a faster-spreading strain can outnumber the others. Decide whether prions evolve.

Claim

Reasoning

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