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The Wasting Disease Rules Moved Again Before Opening Day
Colorado flips mandatory testing from deer to elk, Idaho redraws its unit list, and Delaware writes emergency rules after a first detection.
Chronic wasting disease keeps rewriting the fine print. Colorado now requires heads from every elk taken during rifle seasons in selected hunt codes, at no charge, and has dropped mandatory deer testing entirely for 2026. Hunters who want a deer tested anyway can submit voluntarily for $25.
Idaho requires testing for deer in seven units, adding 64 and 69 near Idaho Falls while removing 24 and 32A after two consecutive years with no detections. Units 14 and 18 and part of Unit 1 remain management zones, where testing is mandatory and whole carcasses may not leave the zone at all.
Delaware confirmed its first case this spring and adopted emergency regulations in August, ahead of a September 1 opener, setting up a management zone and expanding sampling. Washington has confirmed eight deer since 2024 in Spokane and Pend Oreille counties and is holding its 2025 rules in place for the 100-series units.
The practical version: read the proclamation for the unit you actually drew, not the one you hunted last year, and build travel time into the plan for reaching a check station, a self-serve kiosk or a participating taxidermist. Submitting a sample does not satisfy harvest reporting, which is a separate obligation.
Idaho biologists also flag a very dry year in the Clearwater region and ask hunters to track active fires and take care with anything that throws a spark.
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