With the opening of general mule deer season on the horizon, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is working to inform hunters and landowners in West Texas about chronic wasting disease and the rules implemented to reduce the risk of spread.

CWD is a slow, progressive, fatal neurological disease found in certain cervids, including deer, elk, moose, and other members of the deer family. Due to long incubation periods, affected cervids may not show visible signs of illness until years after they are infected. The department recommends hunters review information about testing requirements and carcass movement restrictions in the CWD zones before heading out to the field. 

Landowners and hunters play a critical role in managing CWD. The most effective way for them to help slow the spread of CWD is to report sick deer to a department biologist or game warden and to submit their deer for testing  at a local check station. 

While archery-only mule deer season is already open statewide, the general mule deer season is open in the Trans-Pecos from Nov. 26-Dec. 12.

All of El Paso and Hudspeth counties and portions of Culberson County, are in a CWD Zone. Hunters who harvest mule deer, white-tailed deer, elk, or exotic CWD-susceptible species within the zones are required to bring their animals to a TPWD check station within 48 hours of harvest. Hunters must check each animal harvested and receive a CWD receipt before taking any part of that animal from the CWD Zone, including any meat or quartered parts.

Carcasses of CWD-susceptible species cannot enter Texas from a state or county known to have CWD. Harvests can also not be transported out of a CWD zone except cut quarters with all brain and spinal cord tissue removed; boned meat, cut and wrapped; caped hides with skull not attached; skull plate with antlers attached and cleaned of all soft tissue; and finished taxidermy products.

The skinned or unskinned head of a susceptible species may be transported to a taxidermist (with a deer head waiver), provided all brain material, soft tissue, spinal column and any unused portions of the head are disposed of in a landfill permitted by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Download the deer head waiver form to transport the intact head or obtain the waiver from a CWD check station.

Hunters bringing intact deer heads into Texas from a state or country with CWD should also have this waiver.