The concern over Chronic Wasting Disease has turned into alarm from Florida to Wyoming and in between.

It’s as serious as many biologists and deer hunters believed it might be, a big reason Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries urges deer hunters in northeast Louisiana to place the head of any deer they harvest this season in one of 13 free CWD Testing Collection Points throughout the region to test for CWD.

“We are asking hunters to bring the head of any deer they harvest in the four-parish control area so we can test the animals and help slow the spread of the disease,” Johnathan Bordelon, LDWF’s State Deer Program Manager, said in a prepared statement released Dec. 13.

“CWD is 100 percent fatal to deer and there is currently no treatment.”

Bordelon pointed out collection sites are located in Catahoula, Concordia, Franklin, Madison, Morehouse, Tensas and Union parishes. He also said the testing process is fast and free to hunters, who fill out a collection card indicating where and when the deer was harvested, place the card in an envelope, put the envelope and deer head in a plastic bag, then put the bag in a cooler.

The veteran game biologist also said supplies needed are provided at each collection site.

Biologists collect the heads throughout the season. They remove two retropharyngeal lymph nodes from the deer’s head, plus a sample of the brain stem.

Bordelon said the testing process usually spans two weeks. If a deer tests positive for CWD, LDWF contacts the hunter who dropped off the sample.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said there is no evidence CWD can infect humans, LDWF reported. However, CDC recommends caution in handling deer meat in the infected region and that CWD-positive deer should not be eaten.

LDWF is confronting the disease that was found in all three neighboring states – Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi – long before it was reported in Louisiana for the first time Feb. 4, 2022, by the Louisiana Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory. The infected deer was killed on private land in Tensas Parish, according to the LDWF.

Bordelon said, “CWD is found in 32 states, and we have had confirmed cases of CWD in Tensas Parish. Deer show no outward signs of the disease until it is very advanced so testing is required to identify infected animals.

According to a story posted Dec. 21 in the Lubbock Avalanche Journal, CWD is becoming increasingly present in deer populations in Texas. Texas Parks and Wildlife confirmed a 2-year-old whitetail buck harvested earlier this month is the first CWD case in Coleman County.

TPWD biologists initially diagnosed the disease in three deer in Hunt and Sutton counties in April 2025. Since that time, the state agency has confirmed 574 cases overall.

And since Jan. 1, 2023, 138 cases have been confirmed by TPWD.

Over in Mississippi, a 2 ½-year-old buck was found with CWD in Harrison County during November, according to a story posted the second week of December by The Clarion-Ledger. As a result, the Mississippi Commission on Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks created a new CWD Management Zone that includes portions of Hancock and Harrison counties and will go into effect Feb. 16, 2024.

Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas aren’t the only states dealing with the disease.

Florida’s first case was confirmed in June. A white-tailed deer killed on the road in Holmes County near the Alabama border tested positive for the highly contagious disease during routine surveillance by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

FFWCC also took action after the deer’s disease was confirmed. The emergency order includes establishment of a disease management zone in portions of Holmes, Jackson and Washington counties.

The Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife announced on Dec. 7 a white-tailed deer with CWD was found in Ballard County. Reacting to the new detection in Kentucky, a comprehensive response plan was put in please to contain, reduce and eliminate the disease’s spread in Kentucky.

KDFW officials first enacted a surveillance plan in 2021 after a diseased deer was tested in Tennessee. They were reacting in case CWD traveled across the border into Florida.

Then there is the extreme side of CWD.

Far west and north of the Deep South, Casper-Riverton KCWY-DT reported the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, dealing with CED cases since 2001, confirmed a few weeks ago the presence of CWD in Elk Hunt Area 122 after a hunter recently submitted a lymph node sample from a cow elk.

“This wasn’t a surprise. All of the surrounding areas as well as the mule deer areas that are overlapping have been positive for CWD for years,” Janet Milek, spokesperson for WGFD, said.

DON SHOOPMAN is outdoors editor of The Daily Iberian.