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New York has not found CWD, and tests deer to keep checking

New York CWD Testing and Deer Carcass Rules

New York has no CWD in its wild deer, testing is optional and paid for by the hunter except in the Herkimer County surveillance towns where DEC takes heads for free, and no whole carcass or intact head may be brought in from any other state.

Not required
Is a sample required
a test is offered on any deer
Boned out
Carrying a carcass in
No whole carcass from anywhere
See the agency
What the test costs
no turnaround published
Not reported
Found in wild deer
no zone drawn
The answer

Is CWD testing required in New York

Voluntary, offered statewide

New York reports no detection in wild deer, and New York State Department of Environmental Conservation sets no requirement to submit a sample. A test is offered on any deer a hunter brings in.

How to submit
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation names self service kiosk and cooperating taxidermist.

DEC’s drop off locations

Hunters who harvest a deer in New York can pay to have their deer tested.
Chronic Wasting Disease, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source
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Driving a deer into New York

What may be carried across the New York 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 New York from any other state. The parts DEC does admit are listed below.

No whole carcass or intact head of a deer, elk, moose or caribou taken anywhere outside New York may be brought into the state, and only the parts DEC names may be imported, with an exemption for travellers passing through who leave nothing behind.

What DEC admits, in its own categories:

  • deboned meat
  • cleaned skull cap
  • antlers with no flesh adhering
  • raw or processed cape or hide
  • cleaned teeth or lower jaw
  • finished taxidermy products
Only the deboned meat, cleaned skull cap, antlers with no flesh adhering, raw or processed cape or hide, cleaned teeth or lower jaw, and finished taxidermy products of CWD- susceptible animals may be brought into New York.
Chronic Wasting Disease, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source

NYCRR Part 189

Where the state stands

CWD in New York: status, zones and baiting

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation reports no detection of the disease in New York's wild deer herd.

Baiting and feeding
Baiting and feeding banned statewide
Carcass waste
Leave carcass parts where the animal was harvested or take them to a landfill.
CWD is not currently known to be in wild deer in New York.
Chronic Wasting Disease, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source

New York draws no management or surveillance zone, which means its rules apply the same way in every county. Several states added a first zone within a season of a first detection, so a zone boundary is the part of a state's rules most likely to change.

A green steel dumpster stencilled DEER CARCASS mounted on a single axle trailer in a sandy pine clearing, with a hoist gantry beside it and a pile of soil behind
The disposal end of the same trip, parked in a pine flatwood with a gantry to hang a deer from. Forty one states publish a rule about what happens to the bones and the head after the meat comes off, and in most of them it reads the same way: landfill, or back on the property where the deer was taken, and nowhere else. It is the part of the law that applies whether or not anybody ever asks for a test. “Deer carcass disposal”, The Bushranger, CC BY-SA 4.0

New York CWD questions

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CWD rules in other states

CWD rules in every stateHow the 50 states differ on sampling, cost and what crosses a state line.Venomous snakes by stateWhich species a state actually has, and where the range maps put them.Burn permits by stateWhether a permit is needed today, and who issues it.Firewood permitsWhat a cord off public land costs, and which forests still sell one.New York tick activityThe weather driven tick index for New York, updated daily.

New York read September 23, 2026 from Chronic Wasting Disease, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, 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 DEC document linked above is the one that governs. Every state is on the CWD testing hub.