Outdoors
The BDN outdoors section brings readers into the woods, waters and wild places of Maine. It features stories on hunting, fishing, wildlife, conservation and recreation, told by people who live these experiences. This section emphasizes hands-on knowledge, field reports, issues, trends and the traditions that define life outside in Maine. Read more Outdoors stories here.
Deer hunters like an edge, an advantage that increases the chances of success, if only slightly. The popularity and increased use of tree stands in recent years is a prime example. According to a 1993 magazine survey, 9.5 million of the 11 million U.S. deer hunters surveyed, or about 86%, used a tree stand. My wife and I fall within that percentage.
The popularity and use of various urine-based deer lures and attractants is another example. I am old enough and have hunted long enough to remember when these products were somewhat of a novelty. Today, scent-control and lure products, including various attractants, cover scents and lures, can be found on the shelves of practically every sporting goods store selling hunting equipment.
Personally, I’ve never had much use for most of it. I don’t arrow a deer or fill my tags every year. Perhaps if I did, my success rate might be higher, but year in and year out I do all right. I do have friends and acquaintances who have used products designed to attract deer or negate a whitetail’s olfactory receptors for years and who swear by their use and the edge they provide. Unless they’re telling hunting yarns, I don’t believe they tag out each year either, but that’s a whole different story for another time.
Chronic wasting disease, or CWD, was first recognized in captive mule deer at a Colorado research facility in the late 1960s. The first documented case in a wild cervid was identified in Colorado in 1981. CWD was later detected in a captive elk farm in Saskatchewan in 1996 and in free-ranging cervids in Saskatchewan in 2001. It was detected in wild deer in Illinois and Wisconsin in 2002 and in Utah in 2003. North Carolina detected its first case in 2022.
As of June 2026, CWD had been documented in 37 states and five Canadian provinces, but not in Maine or elsewhere in New England. New York detected CWD in two wild deer in 2005, but no additional cases have been detected in wild deer there since.
CWD is a fatal disease caused by infectious proteins called prions. The prions can be shed in bodily fluids including saliva, urine and feces and can persist in the environment for years. CWD can spread through direct contact between animals or through contaminated soil, plants, food and water.
To prevent the possible spread of CWD into Maine, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife implemented an emergency rule in 2018 restricting the importation of cervid carcasses and high-risk body parts from all jurisdictions except New Hampshire. I remember it well because I was still hunting caribou in the province at the time and making the occasional trip to Anticosti Island, Ohio and other states for deer.
The rules allow hunters to bring back boned-out meat, hardened antlers, cleaned skull caps, hides without the head, teeth and finished taxidermy mounts. Those restrictions remain in effect.
CWD prions have also been detected in urine. That has raised concerns among wildlife officials about natural urine-based deer lures, which are often made from urine collected from captive deer or elk. There is no direct evidence that a commercial urine lure has introduced CWD into a wild deer population, but wildlife agencies are concerned about the potential risk.
Several states have responded by banning or restricting natural deer urine products. Vermont prohibited them beginning in 2016. Connecticut’s prohibition took effect in 2007. Rhode Island adopted a ban in 2018, and Massachusetts prohibited deer-derived scent attractants beginning in 2026.
New Hampshire has taken a different approach. It does not prohibit natural urine-based lures, but its Fish and Game Department strongly discourages their use and recommends synthetic alternatives because of the potential CWD risk.
That leaves Maine.
At present, Maine does not ban natural urine-based lures. But the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife tells hunters not to use urine-based lures and instead recommends synthetic, non-urine-based lures. The department says there are no standardized or widely accepted protocols for testing commercial deer lures for CWD prions and recommends using synthetic products until further research can show that deer urine does not contain infectious prions.
The scent industry has also taken steps to address the concern. The Archery Trade Association launched its Deer Protection Program in 2016, and the Responsible Hunting Scent Association took over management of the program in 2021. The program establishes guidelines and safeguards for manufacturers of urine-based scents.
Some manufacturers also have their urine products tested using RT-QuIC, a laboratory method designed to detect very small amounts of abnormal prion protein. Products that have undergone this testing may carry an RT-QuIC-tested label.
But those industry safeguards do not mean natural urine products are legal everywhere. States such as Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts prohibit natural deer-derived lures regardless of industry certification.
Along with Maine’s cervid import restrictions, its recommendation to use synthetic lure products and the additional testing and safeguards developed by the scent industry, Maine’s precautionary stance seems to be enough.
The question is, for how long?