SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The areas where hunters have to abide by special rules for handling and transporting animal carcasses have been expanded due to chronic wasting disease in deer and elk in southern New Mexico.
The state Game and Fish Department made the announcement Monday.
The agency says all of game management units 34, 28 and 19 have been designed as control areas. Those include Fort Bliss and White Sands ranges.
Under the department's rules, hunters can transport only certain portions of an animal carcass from a control area. That includes cut and wrapped meat, hides and clean skull plates with antlers attached, but no parts of the spinal column or head.
Chronic wasting disease is a fatal neurological disease. It attacks the brains of infected animals, causing them to become emaciated, behave abnormally and eventually die.
