Louisiana CWD Testing and Deer Carcass Rules
Testing is free and recommended rather than required in Louisiana, a carcass may not leave a CWD Management Zone except as meat and cleaned parts, and no cervid carcass from outside the state may be brought in at all except on the same kind of list.
Is CWD testing required in Louisiana
Louisiana has found the disease in wild deer, and Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries sets no requirement to submit a sample. A test is offered on any deer a hunter brings in.
- How to submit
- Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries names deliver the head to an LDWF regional office and sample drop-off cooler.
- What it costs
- Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries puts the test at no charge to the hunter.
- The zone it draws
- CWD Management Zone
Testing of deer harvested within the CWD management zone is recommended.Chronic Wasting Disease, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source
What may be carried across the Louisiana 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 Louisiana from any other state. The parts LDWF does admit are listed below.
No cervid carcass or carcass part from outside Louisiana may be brought in except as a named list of meat and cleaned parts, each of which must carry a possession tag with the hunter's name, out of state licence number, address, species, date and place of kill.
What LDWF admits, in its own categories:
- 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
- cleaned cervid teeth
No person shall import, transport or possess any cervid carcass or part of a cervid carcass originating outside of Louisiana 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.Cervid Carcass Importation, Section 119, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source
§119
The Louisiana agency’s own words on the meat
Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries publishes this:
However, the CDC recommends caution in handling venison in the infected region and that deer be tested for CWD before consuming.Chronic Wasting Disease, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, 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 Louisiana: status, zones and baiting
Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries has confirmed the disease in Louisiana's wild deer. The first confirmed case dates to 2022. The agency's own table counts positives by parish over five seasons, almost all of them from one parish in the northeast of the state.
- First confirmed case
- 2022
- Baiting and feeding
- Banned inside the zones
- Moving an animal out of a zone
- A deer carcass may not leave the CWD Management Zone; only deboned meat, meat cut and wrapped, quarters with no head or spinal cord, a clean skull plate with antlers, tanned hides, finished taxidermy mounts, cleaned teeth and the cape may be carried out, and a head may go to a taxidermist outside the zone only with a Deer Head Waiver.
- Carcass waste
- A hunter may field dress and leave unused carcass parts on the property where the deer was killed, and the importation rule requires bones to end up in an approved landfill or its equivalent.
The state’s first positive was detected in 2022.CWD FAQs, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, 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 LDWF's own and is the one that governs.
Louisiana CWD questions
CWD rules in other states
Louisiana read September 23, 2026 from CWD FAQs, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, 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 LDWF document linked above is the one that governs. Every state is on the CWD testing hub.