The Pennsylvania Game Commission has put new regulations in place following the discovery of a case of chronic wasting disease in Warren County.

Gov. Tom Wolf sent a release on Friday announcing the Game Commission action. The case in a Warren County deer was announced on Wednesday, May 26.

“The Pennsylvania Game Commission today announced a new Disease Management Area — DMA 5 — has been established in Warren County, where Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) was detected in a captive deer at a hunting preserve,” according to the release. “CWD affects members of the deer, or cervid, family, and the disease always is fatal to the deer and elk it infects. When a new CWD-positive is detected in either a wild or captive cervid in Pennsylvania, a Disease Management Area (DMA) is established. This reduces the risk of the human-assisted spread of CWD.”

The DMA includes somewhat less than one-fourth of the county — and is essentially a rectangle with Youngsville at the southwest corner, extending north to the state line and east to the Allegheny River.

“For deer hunters in DMAs – especially those who live outside the DMA – it’s important to plan your hunt and know ahead of time what you’ll do with the deer you harvest,” according to the release. “Since high-risk cervid (white-tailed deer and Elk in this case) parts can’t be removed from a DMA, successful hunters can’t transport whole deer outside the DMA. Hunters can take deer they harvest to a processor within the DMA, and the processor can properly dispose of the high-risk parts. Hunters can also dispose of high-risk parts in trash that is destined for a landfill or 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.”

Other rules in effect on the DMA including no use nor possession of urine-based attractants; no feeding – directly or indirectly – of wild free-ranging cervids; and no rehabilitation of wild, free-ranging cervids.

“Deer hunters getting taxidermy mounts also must take their harvests to a taxidermist within the DMA, or otherwise on the list of approved processors and taxidermists for the DMA in which they harvested the deer available at www.pgc.pa.gov/CWD,” according to the release. “The Game Commission offers free CWD testing within the DMAs. Hunters should deposit the heads of deer they harvest in one of the head-collection containers the Game Commission provides within DMAs. Antlers should be removed from bucks before the double-bagged head is placed in a collection container. Hunters then are notified of the test results.”

“While CWD never has been documented in humans, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends never eating the meat of a CWD-positive deer,” according to the release.