This spring, Louisiana lawmakers hit play on a video of Ted Nugent railing against chronic wasting disease rules — right there on the floor of the statehouse. That tells you everything about how heated this fight has gotten. And here’s the uncomfortable part: it’s not hunters versus anti-hunters. It’s hunters versus hunters.
Let’s break down what’s actually happening, because the facts matter more than the shouting.
First, What CWD Actually Is
Chronic wasting disease is a prion disease that attacks the brains of deer, elk, and moose. It spreads through saliva, urine, feces, and blood, and it lingers in the soil for years. It’s always fatal. There’s no cure and no vaccine.
As of 2026, it’s been detected in 37 states — Delaware became the 37th in April when it found its first wild case. This isn’t a fringe issue anymore. It’s in a lot of our backyards.
Can it jump to people? Here’s the honest answer, straight from the CDC: “CWD infections in people have never been reported, and so far, it’s not known if people could get infected with CWD.” Zero human cases, ever. But the CDC still says don’t eat meat from an animal that tests positive — a caution rooted in the fact that mad cow disease, a cousin prion, did cross into humans. Take that for exactly what it is: unproven risk, handled carefully.
The Louisiana Showdown
Louisiana Rep. Danny McCormick pushed a resolution (HCR4) to suspend the state’s deer baiting and feeding bans in CWD zones for 18 months. Nugent, teaming up with the group Hunter Nation, submitted a pre-recorded video backing it.
His pitch was blunt: “I’ve had enough with CWD and the one-size fits all rules that come with it.” He added that “the left and the misinformed have used scare tactics for far too long to purposely destroy our hunting lifestyle and heritage.”
The House ate it up, passing HCR4 on a 63-30 vote in late April. But the story didn’t end there. The final rule that took effect May 21 came from a modified measure by Sen. Glen Womack: instead of gutting the bans, it tightened the radius — baiting is now banned only within five miles of a positive sample, and allowed from five to fifteen miles out. A compromise, not a repeal.
This wasn’t Nugent’s first rodeo. Back in June 2025 he sat before a joint Michigan House hearing and called DNR officers “jack-booted thugs” and “cowards,” blasting the state’s regulations as “insane.” He’s been calling CWD “a scam” in print since at least 2015.
Why So Many Hunters Are Fed Up
The frustration is real, and if you’ve hunted a CWD zone you get it. The rules stack up fast: baiting and feeding bans, mandatory carcass testing, restrictions on hauling a whole deer out of a zone, check stations, and government sharpshooters culling herds.
For a lot of us, it feels like getting punished for a problem we didn’t create. The pushback has teeth, too — Missouri paused its post-season targeted deer-removal program in mid-December 2025 after hunters made enough noise (though the state kept its testing and monitoring going). When your own agency backs off culling, you know the tension is boiling.
Why Other Hunters Say “Don’t Get Cocky”
Here’s the flip side, and it’s every bit as much a hunter’s argument. Groups like the National Deer Association, Boone & Crockett, and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership — which flat-out calls CWD “the greatest threat to the future of deer hunting” — all back aggressive management.
The science behind the bait bans is straightforward: pile up corn and you pull deer nose-to-nose at one spot, and that’s exactly how prions move between animals and into the dirt.
Even MeatEater’s Steven Rinella, no fan of the sensational “zombie deer” headlines, urges hunters not to shrug it off. “Testing is part of the hunt,” he’s said, warning that “people wake up to it when it hits close to home.” His point: by the time CWD is your problem, it’s already too late to have ignored it.
Where We Land
We’re hunters, not bureaucrats — so we feel the frustration in our bones. Nobody wants to be told how to run their own deer woods. But pretending CWD is a hoax doesn’t make it disappear, and losing our herds is a far bigger threat to hunting than any baiting rule. The smart fight isn’t “no rules” versus “all the rules.” It’s demanding regulations that are targeted, science-based, and actually work — like Louisiana’s tightened five-mile radius instead of a blanket ban.
This is the same battle we’re fighting on every front, from the public land sell-off to ballot-box attacks like Colorado’s right-to-hunt fight. When we splinter, we lose. When we stay unified on the science, we win.
Want to chase deer and elk in country where the herds are healthy and the hunting’s world-class? Our Montana elk, deer, and black bear combo hunt and our Colorado guided elk hunts are booking now — or browse all our guided hunt adventures. Got questions? Reach out. We live this stuff.
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