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Arkansas requires a sample from some deer, and offers a test on the rest

Arkansas CWD Testing and Deer Carcass Rules

A deer taken in Arkansas is tested only if the hunter wants it and the test is free, but every elk must be submitted, and nothing but deboned meat and clean parts may enter the state or leave the CWD Management Zone.

In named areas
Is a sample required
and voluntary everywhere else
Boned out
Carrying a carcass in
No whole carcass from anywhere
Free
What the test costs
no turnaround published
Yes, 2016
Found in wild deer
CWD Management Zone, split into Tier 1 and Tier 2
The answer

Is CWD testing required in Arkansas

Sampling required in the named areas

Arkansas Game and Fish Commission requires a sample from deer taken in the areas it names, and a test is available on a deer taken anywhere else in Arkansas.

Where the requirement bites
Every elk taken anywhere in Arkansas must be checked and its sample submitted for a CWD test, and bonus deer taken on landowner tags inside the CWD Management Zone must be submitted too, while an ordinary deer is voluntary.
How to submit
Arkansas Game and Fish Commission names CWD Testing Drop-off Container, AGFC Regional Office and participating taxidermist.
What it costs
Arkansas Game and Fish Commission puts the test at no charge to the hunter.
The zone it draws
CWD Management Zone, split into Tier 1 and Tier 2

AGFC’s drop off locationsLook up a result

Submitting a deer for CWD sampling is voluntary; however, all elk harvested in Arkansas must be submitted for a CWD test.
CWD Testing Options, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source
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Driving a deer into Arkansas

What may be carried across the Arkansas line

This is the rule a hunter is most likely to miss, because it is written by the state being entered rather than the state the animal was taken in. Reading the regulations of the state hunted in cover to cover does not surface it. Nationally, 42 of the 50 states restrict what crosses and 27 refuse an intact carcass from anywhere at all.

No whole carcass from anywhereA hunter driving home to this state boned the animal out before the line, whatever state the hunt was in.

An intact carcass may not be carried into Arkansas from any other state. The parts AGFC does admit are listed below.

No part of a deer, elk, moose or caribou taken outside Arkansas may be brought in except clean antlers and skulls, deboned meat, cleaned teeth, hides and finished taxidermy, with an exception for deer taken between the Mississippi River levees in Tennessee and Mississippi.

What AGFC admits, in its own categories:

  • Antlers and/or antlers attached to clean skull plates or cleaned skulls (where no meat or tissues are attached to skull)
  • Meat with all bones removed
  • Cleaned teeth
  • Hides and tanned products
  • Finished taxidermy products
It is unlawful to import, transport or possess in Arkansas, any portion of a of a deer, elk, moose or caribou harvested outside of the state within Arkansas, except the following low-risk items: Antlers and/or antlers attached to clean skull plates or cleaned skulls (where no meat or tissues are attached to skull) Meat with all bones removed Cleaned teeth Hides and tanned products Finished taxidermy products
CWD-Related Wildlife/Hunting Regulations, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source
What AGFC says

The Arkansas agency’s own words on the meat

Arkansas Game and Fish Commission publishes this:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention strongly recommends having your deer or elk tested when hunting in areas where CWD is known to be present before eating the meat.
CWD Testing Options, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source

That sentence is reproduced whole and unedited because it is the agency’s statement rather than a summary of one, and 30 of the 50 states here publish one of their own. The wording differs between states.

Where the state stands

CWD in Arkansas: status, zones and baiting

Arkansas Game and Fish Commission has confirmed the disease in Arkansas's wild deer. The first confirmed case dates to 2016. The agency names Newton County as the first case and then lists a further twenty five counties where positives have since been found, and says the CWD Management Zone itself gained Grant and Sevier counties on July 1, 2026..

First confirmed case
2016
Baiting and feeding
Banned inside the zones
Moving an animal out of a zone
Only the low risk items may leave the CWD Management Zone, and a whole carcass taken in a Tier 1 county may move among Tier 1 counties but may not go into a Tier 2 county.
In February 2016, an elk harvested in the fall of 2015 near Pruitt in Newton County tested positive for CWD. This was the first documented case of the disease in the State of Arkansas.
CWD in Arkansas, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source

Zone boundaries are redrawn between seasons more often than any other rule here, usually after a new detection near an existing line. The map linked above is AGFC's own and is the one that governs.

A small white steel shelter on a gravel pad with one open bay and a sign reading LDWF CWD TESTING CONTAINER SITE beside a deer silhouette, bare trees behind it at dusk
A freezer container site, open at the side and lit at night. A state that wants samples from a whole parish cannot staff a counter for three months, so it buys a cooler and a sign and takes the head whenever the hunter finishes. The tag in the box is the part that matters: everything the lab can tell a hunter later depends on the paper that went in with the head. “LDWF CWD Testing Container Site 01”, Ktkvtsh, CC BY 4.0

Arkansas CWD questions

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CWD rules in other states

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Arkansas read September 23, 2026 from CWD in Arkansas, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, linked above. Carcass rules, zone boundaries and sampling requirements change between one season’s regulations and the next, and a state can add a rule mid season after a new detection, so the AGFC document linked above is the one that governs. Every state is on the CWD testing hub.