PA deer hunters face new CWD rules out-of-state
Deer hunters know it is time to make plans for the upcoming seasons. Many have already mailed their familiar pink envelopes to county treasurers to apply for antlerless licenses.
But they may not be aware of new rules that apply to Pennsylvania hunters who pursue deer in neighboring states, and these rules are important. The Game Commission enacted the regulations to discourage further spread of chronic wasting disease (CWD) among Pennsylvania’s deer and elk.
Beginning with the 2018 seasons, no deer killed anywhere within West Virginia, Maryland, Ohio or New York may be transported into Pennsylvania unless the CWD-high-risk parts have been removed. Chronic wasting disease infection concentrates in the brain, spinal cord, and associated tissues of an afflicted deer. High-risk parts as identified in the regulations are the head (including the brain, tonsils, eyes and lymph nodes); spinal cord/backbone; spleen; skull plate with attached antlers (if visible brain tissue is present); cape (if visible brain or spinal cord tissue is present); upper canine teeth (if root structure or other soft tissue is present); any object or article containing visible brain or spinal cord tissue; unfinished taxidermy mounts; and brain-tanned hides.
Hunters may transport the meat and antlers into Pennsylvania if none of the high-risk parts or tissues cited above are present.
That’s a lot of anatomy, and potential exists for unintentional violations. Readers might consider this columnist’s past experiences as a guide to how deer killed out-of-state might now be handled.
For many years a friend and I hunted deer every autumn on West Virginia’s nearby Coopers Rock State Forest. When we were successful, we took our deer to the official check station in Bruceton Mills, as required by West Virginia rules, then made the short return trip to Pennsylvania via Rte. 381 and Elliotsville. We butchered our kills in my garage.
We haven’t hunted in West Virginia for several years, but if we did, our past practice would no longer be legal. To comply with Pennsylvania’s new CWD rules, we’d need to leave our deer behind at a butcher shop in West Virginia, for later retrieval of the meat and antlers, absent all high-risk parts.
Technically, a successful Pennsylvania hunter could also elect to “bone out” the meat in the West Virginia woods before returning home, but then might face the prospect of needing to prove he’d killed a legal deer (antlered/antlerless), depending on the seasons open at that time, and whether or not it had possessed antlers, which could not legally be intact on the head.
The surest and simplest way to comply will be to locate a butcher in West Virginia, before the hunt, who will agree to process any deer killed in a manner that meets the rules for import into Pennsylvania.
West Virginia was used here as an example here because it borders our readership-area, and so many local residents hunt there. But the same import rules now apply to the entire states of Maryland, Ohio and New York, as well as to the following states and provinces: Alberta, Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Saskatchewan, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
It is no longer legal to transport into Pennsylvania a whole deer killed in any of those states.
Chronic wasting disease is the always-fatal infection now found in deer and elk in many parts of the Rocky Mountain West, Great Lakes, Central and Mid-Atlantic states. The malady is caused by abnormal proteins known to scientists as “prions,” which cause lesions and holes to develop in the brain. It was first discovered in Pennsylvania in 2012, and more than 100 wild CWD-positive deer have been confirmed in the state since, in addition to several in captive herds. The greatest concentration of CWD-positive free-ranging deer in Pennsylvania has been within the Game Commission’s Disease Management Area 2 (DMA 2) in southcentral Pennsylvania. DMA 2 extends from eastern Somerset County (east of Rtes. 219 and 160), eastward to Gettysburg, and northward to approximately the northern borders of Blair and Cambria counties. Detailed maps are available on the Game Commission’s website at www.pgc.pa.gov.
Transmission of CWD happens by direct deer-to-deer contact or by contact with an infected deer’s saliva, urine or feces. For that reason, artificial feeding of deer is strongly discouraged, and prohibited within disease management areas. The prions which cause the infection can also be introduced to new areas by infected deer tissues.
There is no way to test wild, free-ranging deer for CWD while they are alive. To test for the disease, brain biopsies must be taken after a deer is killed. In the later stages of CWD, infected deer appear listless and exhibit uncoordinated movements. They may drool and hold the neck and head in a lowered position. These symptoms, however, are not be apparent in early stages of infection.
In addition to maps of Disease Management Areas (No parts of Fayette, Greene, Washington or Westmoreland counties are currently included), comprehensive information about CWD is provided on the Game Commission website.
“The previous rules didn’t provide assurance that deer harvested in CWD-positive counties within New York, Ohio, Maryland or West Virginia weren’t making their way into the Commonwealth,” said Game Commission executive director Brian Burhans. “Tightening up this order puts teeth in the Game Commission’s ability to enforce it, allowing us to better protect our deer and elk from CWD.”
To date, there have been no reported cases of CWD infection in humans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As a precaution, CDC recommends people avoid eating meat from deer and elk that look sick or that have tested positive for CWD.