Skip to content
Utah requires a sample from some deer, and offers a test on the rest

Utah CWD Testing and Deer Carcass Rules

Three Utah buck deer hunts require a CWD sample and 18 more units get free check station testing this fall, anyone else pays $30 at the state lab, and no whole deer, elk or moose may be driven in from any of the 28 states and provinces where the disease has been found.

In named areas
Is a sample required
and voluntary everywhere else
Restricted
Carrying a carcass in
No whole carcass from an affected state
free on the 2026 sampling units, $30 anywhere else
What the test costs
turnaround below
Yes, 2002
Found in wild deer
no zone drawn
The answer

Is CWD testing required in Utah

Sampling required in the named areas

Utah Division of Wildlife Resources requires a sample from deer taken in the areas it names, and a test is available on a deer taken anywhere else in Utah.

Where the requirement bites
A hunter who kills a buck deer on the Castle Valley or Moab Valley limited entry any legal weapon hunts, or on the Ogden general season any legal weapon hunt, has to turn in a CWD sample; the kit and instructions arrive in the mail in September.
How to submit
Utah Division of Wildlife Resources names division check station, DWR office by appointment, mailed sample kit and Utah Veterinary Diagnostic Lab.
What it costs
Utah Division of Wildlife Resources waives the fee in some places and not others: free on the 2026 sampling units, $30 anywhere else.
How long results take
four to six weeks

DWR’s drop off locationsLook up a result

Hunters who harvest a buck deer during the following hunts are required to submit a CWD sample:
Chronic wasting disease, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source
Advertisement
Driving a deer into Utah

What may be carried across the Utah 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 an affected stateWhether the drive is legal turns on where the animal was taken rather than on how it was packed.

An intact carcass may not be carried into Utah from a state or province where the disease has been found. An animal from anywhere else falls outside the rule.

A whole carcass may not come into Utah from any of the 28 states and provinces where CWD has been found, only the eight listed parts; a nonresident may drive one through if the stop is under 24 hours, nothing is left behind and nothing is processed in Utah.

What DWR admits, in its own categories:

  • Meat that is cut and wrapped either commercially or privately
  • Quarters or other portion of meat with no part of the spinal column or head attached
  • Meat that is boned out
  • Hides with no heads attached
  • Skulls and skull plates with antlers attached that have been cleaned of all brain matter and spinal column matter
  • Antlers with no meat or tissue attached
  • Upper canine teeth known as buglers, whistlers or ivories
  • Finished taxidermy heads
It is unlawful to import dead mule deer, white-tailed deer, elk, moose, caribou, reindeer, or their parts, except for the carcass parts listed above, from states or provinces where CWD has been detected.
Chronic wasting disease, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source
What DWR says

The Utah agency’s own words on the meat

Utah Division of Wildlife Resources publishes this:

Do not consume meat from animals known to be infected with CWD.
Chronic wasting disease, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, 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 Utah: status, zones and baiting

Utah Division of Wildlife Resources has confirmed the disease in Utah's wild deer. The first confirmed case dates to 2002. The DWR maps the disease by deer hunting unit, not county, and says it sits in areas of northern, northeastern, central and southeastern Utah; 435 mule deer and 11 elk have tested positive as of February 2026..

First confirmed case
2002
Baiting and feeding
Baiting and feeding banned statewide
Carcass waste
Leave the spine and the rest of the waste where the animal fell, or double bag it for a landfill or the household trash if the animal is broken down somewhere else.
The disease was first discovered in Utah in 2002, in a buck deer taken during the rifle hunt near Vernal.
Chronic wasting disease, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, read September 23, 2026. Read it at the source

Utah 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

Utah CWD questions

Advertisement

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

Utah read September 23, 2026 from Chronic wasting disease, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, 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 DWR document linked above is the one that governs. Every state is on the CWD testing hub.