Carcass Importation Restrictions

Currently, 32 states have adopted regulations affecting the transportation of hunter-harvested cervids. In October 2005, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission approved a carcass importation restriction to further increase Arkansas’s protection against chronic wasting disease.

One theoretical mode of disease transmission is through infected carcasses. Since the suspected infectous agent (prion) is  concentrated in the brain, spinal cord and lymph glands, it is important to keep these items from CWD-positive states out of Arkansas.

A cervid is any member of the Cervidae family, including white-tailed deer, elk, moose, red deer, sika deer, fallow deer, mule deer and caribou.

The following U.S. states and Canadian provinces are CWD positive:

Alberta      Colorado      Kansas      Illinois      Minnesota*      Montana*      Nebraska      New Mexico      New York  Oklahoma*      Saskatchewan
South Dakota      Utah      West Virginia      Wisconsin      Wyoming

*States and provinces where CWD has been found in captive cervids only.

And any other state or province where a positive case of CWD has been detected as confirmed by United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) or Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

It is unlawful for hunters to import, transport or possess in Arkansas entire cervid carcasses from any state that has a known case of chronic wasting disease (CWD) or considered taken from a captive facility or within an enclosure.

Hunters may bring the following items back into Arkansas:

• Meat that has bones removed
• Meat that has no portion of the spinal column or head attached
• Antlers and/or antlers attached to clean skull plates or cleaned skulls (where no meat or tissues are attached to skull)
• Cleaned teeth
• Finished taxidermy products
• Hides and tanned products
• Deer or elk harvested in commercial wildlife hunting resorts in Arkansas providing that a Chronic Wasting Disease sample is collected.