Florida CWD Testing and Deer Carcass Rules
Testing in Florida is free and voluntary, a carcass may not leave the panhandle management zone whole, and no carcass or high risk part of any deer family animal may be brought into the state from anywhere else.
Is CWD testing required in Florida
Florida has found the disease in wild deer, and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission sets no requirement to submit a sample. A test is offered on any deer a hunter brings in.
- How to submit
- Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission names participating taxidermists and meat processors and drop-off freezers for the public.
- What it costs
- Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission puts the test at no charge to the hunter.
- The zone it draws
- CWD Management Zone
Hunters are being asked to support the FWC’s efforts to monitor Florida deer for CWD by voluntarily submitting their deer heads for testing (skull cap and antlers can be removed and kept by the hunter).Information for Hunters, Chronic Wasting Disease, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source
What may be carried across the Florida 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.
An intact carcass may not be carried into Florida from any other state. The parts FWC does admit are listed below.
No whole carcass or high risk part of any deer family animal from anywhere outside Florida may be brought in or possessed, only deboned meat, a finished mount, antlers, hides and cleaned skulls or teeth, with one exception for a property on the Georgia or Alabama line under single ownership.
What FWC admits, in its own categories:
- de-boned meat
- finished taxidermy mounts
- antlers
- hides
- skulls, skull caps and teeth if all soft tissue has been removed
Commission rule changes prohibit importing or possessing whole carcasses or high-risk parts of deer, elk, moose, caribou and all other species of the deer family originating from any place outside of Florida.CWD Regulations, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source
The Florida agency’s own words on the meat
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission publishes this:
Accordingly, hunters are advised not to eat meat from animals known to be infected with CWD.Information for Hunters, Chronic Wasting Disease, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation 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.
CWD in Florida: status, zones and baiting
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has confirmed the disease in Florida's wild deer. The first confirmed case dates to 2023. Every case the agency reports is from one county in the panhandle, and the later ones were found within five miles of the first.
- First confirmed case
- 2023
- Baiting and feeding
- Banned inside the zones
- Moving an animal out of a zone
- A whole carcass or a high risk part may not leave the management zone, so a deer killed inside it has to be reduced before it goes to a home, a processor or a taxidermist outside.
- Carcass waste
- Parts not kept should be double bagged into household garbage or taken to a Class 1 landfill, or commercially incinerated, and never burned in a fire, put in water or carried across a state line.
The FWC has confirmed a total of four cases of CWD infection in deer in Holmes County.Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation 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 FWC's own and is the one that governs.
Florida CWD questions
CWD rules in other states
Florida read September 23, 2026 from Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation 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 FWC document linked above is the one that governs. Every state is on the CWD testing hub.