Pennsylvania Game News - September 2021 - 6

CWD IMPACTS IN PENNSYLVANIA
Talking deer hunting in Pennsylvania requires
mentioning Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD).
" The fight to contain CWD is ongoing and, unfortunately,
will never end, " said Andrea Korman, the
Game Commission's CWD biologist.
Hunters will notice some changes for 2021-22.
First, there's a new Disease Management Area
- DMA 5 - in Warren County, the result of a CWDpositive
deer found at a captive facility.
That puts certain rules into effect. Namely, it's
illegal within a DMA to remove any cervid high-risk
parts; use or possess cervid urine-based attractants;
directly or indirectly feed wild, free-ranging deer; and
rehabilitate wild, free-ranging cervids.
The parts-movement ban means hunters in a DMA
must determine in advance what they'll do with any
deer they harvest. They can take them to a processor
within the DMA or to one included on a Game
Commission-approved list for that particular DMA,
so that the processor can properly dispose of the
high-risk parts. Hunters can also dispose of high-risk
parts within the DMA in trash destined for a landfill.
Or they can quarter the animal and leave the high-risk
parts at the kill site.
The meat, antlers (free of brain material) and
other low-risk parts then can be transported outside
the DMA.
Hunters getting taxidermy mounts must likewise
take their deer to a taxidermist within the DMA or
on the Game Commission list. The processor and
taxidermist list is available at www.pgc.pa.gov/CWD.
The Game Commission offers free CWD testing
within the DMAs.
Hunters should deposit deer heads - minus any
antlers, double-bagged and with a legible harvest
tag attached - in one of the provided head-collection
containers. The locations of those are also on the
agency website.
The Game Commission will test those deer for
CWD for free and make results available to hunters.
Also new this year is the Established Area (EA). It's
a portion of DMA 2 - specifically WMU 4A and part
of WMU 2C - where CWD is considered established
within the deer population and the environment. As
a result, it poses a long-term threat to neighboring
areas.
The goal is to keep the CWD prevalence rate
among hunter-harvested deer at 5 percent or less in
the EA. It was at 14 percent last year.
To bring that number down, the Game Commission's
CWD Response Plan calls for reducing deer
abundance in the EA to mitigate disease transmission
risks, remove diseased cervids from the landscape,
and prevent further contamination of the environment.
Hunters
who harvest deer within the EA are
prohibited from moving high-risk parts beyond its
boundaries, including even into the surrounding
DMA. Using cervid urine-based attractants, feeding
deer and rehabilitating deer is also illegal there.
The Game Commission is taking other steps to
control CWD, too. It is once again offering Deer Management
Assistance Program (DMAP) permits that
allow hunters to take antlerless deer in areas where
additional CWD monitoring is required.
But battling CWD will take time.
" We have made positive steps forward. However,
the results from these actions will not be seen for
years because of the nature of the disease. This is a
long-term effort, " Korman said.
Add it all up and Pennsylvania deer
hunters have lots of opportunity, all while
working toward the goals of the Game
Commission's deer-management plan.
They certainly did well last year.
Hunters harvested an estimated
435,180 deer in 2020-21. That was 12
percent higher than the 2019-20 harvest
of 389,431 and the highest kill in 15 years.
It also marked the 10th time since 1993
6
that the overall harvest surpassed 400,000.
The buck harvest was a large part of
that. Hunters took 174,780 antlered deer
last season, the most ever in the antler
restrictions era. By comparison, the buck
harvest totaled 163,240 in 2019-20 and
147,750 in 2018-19.
" The most likely thing we can attribute
that to is an increasing deer population, "
said Game Commission deer biologist
http://www.pgc.pa.gov/CWD
Pennsylvania Game News - September 2021

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