The potential effects of chronic wasting disease to Arkansas' deer population compelled the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission to make permanent a ban on the importation of cervid carcasses. The permanent ban was adopted at last week's monthly commission meeting.

An emergency ban had been in place since October, but would have expired in February 2006 if the ban had not been permanent. In 2002, the AGFC passed a similar law making it illegal to import, ship, transport or carry into the state, by any means, any live member of the cervid family, including but not limited to white-tailed deer and elk.

The new ban makes it unlawful to import or possess in Arkansas a cervid carcass or carcass part from any area, as proclaimed by the AGFC, that has a known case of CWD or considered taken from a captive facility or within an enclosure.

One way that the disease can be transmitted is by infected carcasses. Twenty-three states have adopted regulations affecting the transportation of hunter-harvested cervids.

Chronic wasting disease is a nervous system disease that has been observed in deer and elk in Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and the two Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta. The disease causes damage to portions of the animal's brain and there is no cure for the fatal disease.