Pennsylvania Outdoors Columnist
April 15, 2026, 4:05 p.m. ET
CWD deer hunting rules change and hunter sample kit for deer testing
- Hunters statewide must now dispose of high-risk deer parts, like the head and spine, in the trash.
- The Game Commission may establish new “no deer feeding” boundaries to help prevent the disease’s spread.
- An optional mail-in kit for hunters to test their deer for CWD is being developed.
If you are thinking about feeding deer or processing your own deer meat, there are changes happening in Pennsylvania that may impact you.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission is developing new “no deer feeding” boundaries and an optional kit for hunters to have their deer tested for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), and the regulations have changed on how to dispose of a deer.
The agency approved several new regulations for managing the fatal neurological disease in deer during its April 11 board meeting. However, more changes are anticipated going forward.
“One of the main changes is going to be, if you harvest a deer in what used to be a Disease Management Area (DMA), previously you could not bring that deer home. Now you can bring it home, but the high-risk parts have to go in the trash,” Andrea Korman, the Game Commission’s Chronic Wasting Disease biologist, said.New hunting legislation: Bills for electronic deer tagging, youth trapping move forward in Pa.Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!
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“And that’s going to be statewide, no matter where you hunt, no matter where you’re bringing your deer. You can bring your deer home, but if you move it from the harvest location, those high-risk parts have to go in the trash. Instead of just being a Disease Management Area regulation, that is now a statewide regulation applying to all hunters everywhere in the state,” Korman said.
The high-risk parts include head and the spine. If the deer is not field dressed at the harvest area, the spleen also needs to be placed in the trash as it also can spread CWD to other deer.
The goal is to prevent the disease from being introduced to a new part of the state.
No feeding deer areas
The agency’s board also approved the Game Commission’s executive director to have the discretionary authority to establish targeted restrictions on feeding deer and other wild cervids in relation to CWD.
In the past, areas with bans on feeding deer were determined by the Disease Management Areas, but that may change.
“Those boundaries may change, but we don’t know what they’re going to look like at this point. But there still is a feeding regulation,” Korman said.
The boundary lines for the new no feeding areas should be released this spring. Joshua Zimmerman, agency spokesman, said the feed ban areas have not been finalized yet, but he anticipates the information will be included in the Hunting and Trapping Digest that hunters receive when they purchase their licenses starting in June.
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CWD testing opportunities
Hunters have the option to submit their deer for CWD testing by placing the deer’s head in a bag and putting it in one of the agency’s collection bins across the Commonwealth.
In future years, the agency also plans to have an option where hunters can remove the tissue parts from a deer’s head and mail them to the agency for testing.
“We are in the process of developing a self-sample kit,” Jeannine Fleegle, wildlife biologist with the PGC’s deer and elk section, said.
“It’s not a field kit, but a way for hunters to extract their own samples, their own lymph nodes (from their deer) and send them to the lab. We are in the process of developing a program to scale it up so that in the next few years that it could be available to hunters statewide,” she explained.
The extra testing option will help hunters who would otherwise have to travel to find a collection bin for their deer heads. “We’re hopeful that in the next year or two, that we’ll be able to do something like that. Make it easier for people to get their deer tested if they so choose to do that,” she said.
The kits will have an instruction sheet with a link to videos that show hunters where to cut and find the lymph nodes for extraction. “And then if people ever have questions, they can always call us and we can try to help walk them through the process as well,” Korman added. “But we’ve tried to cover our bases with making sure they have all the resources they need to be able to do it.”
The kits will be made available statewide, allowing every hunter the opportunity to have their deer tested, not just in parts of the state where collection bins have been placed. The process will help the agency’s disease surveillance by having testing available in more areas.
Urine-based deer attractants
The state legislature eliminated the regulatory prohibition on the use of deer urine-based attractants in any outdoor setting, such as for hunting during the mating season known as the rut.
However, hunters should use caution with them. “The only way to use attractants in my mind is not to use them at all, regardless of their origin,” Fleegle, said. “We know that there are risks involved with it.”
She said using attractants can create similar problems as feeding deer with disease risks and behavioral changes. “It brings deer to one spot, whether they be natural-based or synthetic,” she said.
Feeding and attractants all have the same risks for wildlife. “Anything that brings deer to one point on the landscape, unnaturally, whether that be feeding or baiting or attractive, it’s not good for the deer and it increases disease risk and transmission,” Fleegle said.
CWD by the numbers
The agency has been testing deer from hunters since 2012. In Disease Management Areas, they also test dead deer that are collected from along the sides of roadways.
So far this hunting license year, 467 of 12,610 tests had positive cases for the disease as of April 15. The testing period continues through June and includes testing on deer that have been killed by vehicles.
In the 2024-25 license year, the agency had 530 positive cases out of 13,526 tests. Since 2012, the agency has tested 127,986 deer and found 2,891 cases of CWD in Pennsylvania.
The vast majority of the positive cases have been found in southcentral Pennsylvania. Over the past two years, the PGC has had new detections in Freeport, Armstrong County, in Luzerne County, and the Gettysburg National Military Park.
The disease is spread from deer to deer through saliva, urine and feces.