The Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission (LWFC) has modified the Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) Control Area in northeast Louisiana to include a small portion of northeast Concordia Parish. The CWD Control Area now includes all of Tensas Parish and portions of Concordia, Madison and Franklin parishes.
The control area will include Concordia Parish north and east of U.S. Highway 425.
The move was necessitated due to detection of the disease further south in Tensas Parish. Louisiana has detected 12 CWD positive deer, all in Tensas Parish, since January of 2022.
The CWD Control Area is part of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) response to CWD positive detections in deer harvested in Tensas Parish, the first of which came in January of 2022. CWD is a neurodegenerative disease of white-tailed deer and other members of the deer family. The disease is infectious, always fatal, and has no known treatment.
The disease can be transmitted from live deer, deer carcasses or other environmental sources such as plants or soil contaminated from exposure to CWD positive deer or deer carcasses. To learn more about CWD and complete regulations, go to: https://www.wlf.louisiana.gov/page/cwd
Here is a summary of CWD Control Area regulations:
- All supplemental feeding, including mineral or salt licks, is prohibited. The purpose of this feeding ban is to reduce the potential for the spread of CWD through artificial congregation of deer at bait sites.
- The use of approved bait not normally ingested by deer for feral hog trapping will be allowed.
- The export of cervids, cervid carcasses or parts of cervid carcasses originating within CWD Control Area is prohibited, except for: meat that is cut and wrapped; meat that has been boned out; quarters or other portions of meat with no part of the spinal column or head attached, antlers, clean skull plates with antlers, cleaned skulls without tissue attached, capes, tanned hides, finished taxidermy mounts and cleaned cervid teeth.
- Export exceptions for taxidermy, which require a permit, have been established. The deer head waiver permit must be completed before moving the deer head outside of the CWD Control Area to a taxidermy business. The permit is available on the LDWF CWD webpage (link above). Additional taxidermy waiver instructions on transport and disposal are available by visiting https://www.wlf.louisiana.gov/assets/Hunting/Deer/Files/Taxidermy-waiver-instructions-CWD-Control-Area.pdf
For more information, contact LDWF Deer Program Manager Johnathan Bordelon at jbordelon@wlf.la.gov.