Chronic Wasting Disease – Recommendations for Hunters

The following simple precautions are advised:

• Do not shoot, handle or consume any animal that is acting abnormally or appears to be sick. Contact the Pennsylvania Game Commission if you see or harvest an animal that appears sick.
• Wear latex or rubber gloves when field dressing your deer.
• Bone out the meat from your animal. Don't saw through bone, and avoid cutting through the brain or spinal cord (backbone).
• Minimize the handling of brain and spinal tissues.
• Wash hands and instruments thoroughly after field dressing is completed.
• Avoid consuming brain, spinal cord, eyes, spleen, tonsils and lymph nodes of harvested animals. (Normal field dressing coupled with boning out a carcass will remove most, if not all, of these body parts. Cutting away all fatty tissue will remove remaining lymph nodes.)
• Avoid consuming the meat from any animal that tests positive for the disease.
• If you have your deer or elk commercially processed, request that your animal is processed individually, without meat from other animals being added to meat from your animal
• Within the Pennsylvania Disease Management Area in York and Adams Counties, all hunters are required to take their deer to mandatory check stations so samples can be collected for CWD testing.  PGC will cover the cost of testing.

Guidelines adapted from the Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance