Washington State is outlawing baiting for big game as part of its effort to curb the spread of CWD, according to a new set of rules that were just adopted by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. The regulations go into effect April 24, and they include other limitations that will affect deer, elk, and moose hunters in the state. These rules are designed to limit the spread of chronic wasting disease, the presence of which was confirmed in Washington for the first time eight months ago.
The biggest change under the new rules is the statewide ban on feeding and baiting elk, deer, and moose. Washington hunters have traditionally been allowed to put out bait and hunt over it, with a couple exceptions: the amount of bait could not exceed 10 gallons and hunters could not have multiple bait sites within 200 yards of each other.
Although baiting is controversial in many hunting circles, it’s been a common practice in the Evergreen State for some time. The pending world-record elk, which was tagged in Washington on Dec. 31, was killed legally over a pile of apples and alfalfa.
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WDFW’s own feeding operations are exempt from the ban, according to its own announcement, although the agency says it will continue to evaluate these practices. Washington conducts winter feeding in some areas where elk have lost winter range, and to mitigate crop damages. Other states do this, too, but the practice has come under fire recently — especially this winter, as some Wyoming feedlots have become hotbeds for CWD transmission.
The other CWD-related rules approved by WDFW include:
- There’s now a statewide ban on hunters using scent lures made from urine or other glandular fluids.
- Mandatory CWD testing will become standard for all hunter-harvested cervids (deer, elk, and moose) that are taken in WDFW’s Eastern Region. Hunters will be required to submit either the entire head or lymph nodes for laboratory testing.
- There are new limitations on the transportation of carcasses and animal parts in WDFW’s Eastern region. Hunters are barred from transporting any parts of elk, deer, or moose other than deboned meat and finished taxidermy out of the region.
The regional rules on testing and transportation are also written to apply to other areas, which means they will go into effect automatically in other hunting regions if CWD is found there.
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By enacting a baiting ban and other CWD-related rules, Washington’s hunting regs will fall more in line with other neighboring states. It is illegal to hunt deer, elk, and moose over bait in both Montana and Idaho. Baiting remains heavily restricted in Oregon. And even though CWD hasn’t been confirmed there yet, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has banned the use of urine-based attractants statewide as a precaution.
That doesn’t mean everyone in Washington was happy about the new regs, however. Several hunters criticized the proposed baiting ban during the online comment period, according to the Spokesman Review, and some accused WDFW of trying to limit hunting opportunities.
The new rules signal how seriously WDFW is taking the threat of CWD, as they were approved just eight months after Washington confirmed its first case of the disease. That CWD-positive sample came from a whitetail doe that was found dead north of Spokane in July. Washington wildlife managers had been expecting a positive case to inevitably crop up, and had increased testing in 2021 after several CWD-positive cases were confirmed in Western Montana. Officials also established a Chronic Wasting Disease Management Plan that year that would guide WDFW’s response if the disease were ever confirmed in Washington.
In addition to implementing emergency rules and increasing CWD testing around the Spokane area — which led to four more confirmed cases, all from hunter-harvested deer, in December — WDFW proposed the above list of new CWD-related rules in October. Those rules were published and opened to public comment in February, and they were all accepted as proposed by WDFW Director Kelly Susewind on March 24, according to the announcement from the agency.
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