It's a long, progressive disease, the usual first visible symptom is weight loss because by that point of brain damage the deer drastically reduces eating and drinking. More subtle symptoms would have likely been around for much longer.

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It's a prion disease like mad cow. Protiens are big molecules that fold into a specific shape. The shape matters for how they do their job. Prions are misfolded protiens (same molecule, wrong shape) that cause correctly folded protiens to misfold.

Tldr prions make the protiens in their body stop working.

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This is the answer. CWD can be sun-clinical for as long as 3 years. The deer appears perfectly healthy. It’s really at the final stages that the deer becomes skinny and their behaviors change dramatically.

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Eating supplies energy for moving and protein for building muscles.

CWD makes the proteins not fold and build correctly and eating more protein does nothing if your body doesn't use it. The muscles and brain proteins are dying faster then they are replaced and they are slowly wasting away.

Is it contagious for humans the same way like mad cow disease?

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It's not entirely certain. There have been no human cases of CWD, but it is known that CWD poses a threat, most likely, to non-human primates. CDC recommends not eating meat from deer infected with CWD, as it is possible that CWD could potentially spread to people, similar to Mad Cow Disease.

How do hunters distinguish them?

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>How do hunters distinguish them?

You can send the brain, or other nerve material to be tested. However, there are no known cases of CWD spreading to humans.

Most wildlife agency offer this for free, as tracking infected deer, is a concern for them.

Tongue hanging out, excessive slobbering, being a bit listless while walking similar to someone that is drinking alcohol, looking thinner than they should be. Other than that, you can't tell if it has CWD, and just have to hope it doesn't.

That said, you can chop off the head, and send it in to local facilities that will test it, this is actually encouraged, so the authorities can better map infected populations. In the meantime, you just let the meat sit in your freezer until they report back.

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I think it's important to note that prions take years to show symptoms when mentioning no known cases.

I also wonder if people who are less likely to send their hunted meat in for testing are also less likely to receive diagnosis in case of an infection for various social, financial and personal reasons? To clarify, I'm talking about people who for various reasons refuse to see doctors and when they finally encounter one might be misdiagnosed due to lack of prolonged contact or seeing limited number of doctors who might miss the symptoms due to the rarity and lack of experience.