CONCORD, N.H. — New Hampshire wildlife officials are reminding hunters who travel out of state to follow the state's rules on bringing deer carcasses home, after chronic wasting disease was found in a wild deer in New York for the first time since 2005.

The New York Department of Environmental Conservation confirmed the disease in a deer killed by a hunter in the town of Sparta in western New York, the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department said. New York had previously found the disease in captive and wild deer in Oneida County in 2005 and in captive deer in Herkimer County in 2024, according to the department.

Chronic wasting disease is a fatal neurological illness that affects deer, moose and related animals. It is caused by abnormal proteins called prions, not by a virus or bacteria, and is most likely spread through physical contact, infected feed or a contaminated environment, such as through feces or urine, the department said. The prions are most concentrated in the brain, spinal cord and lymph nodes.

New Hampshire hunters who hunt where the disease has been found may bring home only deboned meat, antlers, upper canine teeth, hides or capes with no part of the head attached, and finished taxidermy mounts, the department said. Antlers attached to skull caps, and canine teeth, must have all soft tissue removed.

The disease has been found in wild or captive deer and related animals in 37 states and five Canadian provinces, according to the department. No New England state is on its list.

Fish and Game said it has tested more than 9,000 deer since 2002 and has never found the disease in New Hampshire. The state also bars bringing in live animals that can carry the disease and discourages hunters from using urine-based lures, which the department said are sometimes made in states where the disease is present and could contain prions.

This brief was drafted by AI from a public agency or political press release and published by The New England Signal. Why we use AI for stories like this one.