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Tennessee has found CWD and tests any deer a hunter brings in

Tennessee CWD Testing and Deer Carcass Rules

Testing is voluntary everywhere in Tennessee and free drop off freezers and cooperating processors take the head, but nothing but deboned meat and clean parts may be brought in from another state or carried out of the western CWD Management Zone.

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
turnaround below
Yes, 2018
Found in wild deer
CWD Management Zone
The answer

Is CWD testing required in Tennessee

Voluntary, offered statewide

Tennessee has found the disease in wild deer, and Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency sets no requirement to submit a sample. A test is offered on any deer a hunter brings in.

How to submit
Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency names drop-off freezers, participating taxidermists and meat processors and sampling locations on the interactive map.
How long results take
The agency says results take about two weeks, sometimes three or four weeks during the holidays and the peak of the hunting season.
The zone it draws
CWD Management Zone

TWRA’s drop off locationsLook up a result

Hunter participation in CWD testing is critical for the continued surveillance and monitoring of CWD throughout the state.
CWD Testing & Results, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source
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Driving a deer into Tennessee

What may be carried across the Tennessee 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 Tennessee from any other state. The parts TWRA does admit are listed below.

A carcass from outside Tennessee may not be brought in at all; only deboned meat, clean skulls and skull plates with antlers, cleaned teeth, finished taxidermy and hides may cross the line.

What TWRA admits, in its own categories:

  • Meat that has bones removed
  • Antlers, antlers attached to cleaned skull plates, or cleaned skulls (where no meat or tissues are attached to the skull.)
  • Cleaned teeth
  • Finished taxidermy and antler products
  • Hides (tanned or green) and tanned products
No person may import, transport, or possess in Tennessee a cervid carcass or carcass part from anywhere outside state except as provided herein: (a) Meat that has bones removed (b) Antlers, antlers attached to cleaned skull plates, or cleaned skulls (where no meat or tissues are attached to the skull.) (c) Cleaned teeth (d) Finished taxidermy and antler products (e) Hides (tanned or green) and tanned products
Deer Carcass Transport & Disposal + Baiting & Feeding, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source
What TWRA says

The Tennessee agency’s own words on the meat

Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency publishes this:

In CWD affected counties, have your animal tested and do not consume animals that test positive for CWD.
CWD Testing & Results, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, 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 Tennessee: status, zones and baiting

Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency has confirmed the disease in Tennessee's wild deer. The first confirmed case dates to 2018. The agency says CWD has been found in wild white-tailed deer in twenty-three counties, with the heaviest concentration in the southwest corner of the state..

First confirmed case
2018
Baiting and feeding
Banned inside the zones
Moving an animal out of a zone
A carcass may move freely among the counties inside the zone, but once it is in the zone only the approved parts may leave it.
Carcass waste
The agency recommends leaving unused parts where the deer was taken, double bagging them with household garbage, or letting a commercial processor dispose of them.
On December 14, 2018, TWRA was informed by its CWD diagnostic laboratory that 10 hunter-harvested deer taken during the opening weekend of gun season from Hardeman and Fayette Counties tested positive for CWD.
CWD in Tennessee, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, 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 TWRA'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

Tennessee 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.Tennessee tick activityThe weather driven tick index for Tennessee, updated daily.

Tennessee read September 23, 2026 from CWD in Tennessee, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, 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 TWRA document linked above is the one that governs. Every state is on the CWD testing hub.