Print 🖨

Below is a spotlight of the emergency, proposed, adopted, and withdrawn rules from the September 15 edition of the Texas Register.

Environment

TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE

Withdrawn Rules

Adopted Rules

  • WILDLIFE – CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE (CWD) 31 TAC §65.81, §65.82 – The change concerning Containment Zones; Restrictions, reduces the extent of the containment zone (CZ) proposed in Hunt County. Historically, when chronic wasting disease (CWD) has been detected in a deer breeding facility but not on any associated release sites, the department has considered the property on which the breeding facility is located to be a de facto CZ because it is immediately subject to a quarantine and a herd plan issued by the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC) and is surrounded by a fence capable or retaining deer at all times. When CWD is detected in a free-ranging deer, the department has typically imposed a containment zone with a five-mile radius around the location of the free-ranging positive. When breeder deer are released, they are no longer breeder deer and are free-ranging because they are no longer in captivity within a deer breeding facility. However, the department considers high-fenced release sites with free-ranging positive deer to be different, for epidemiological purposes, from low-fenced locations where CWD is detected in free-ranging deer. Because the free-range positive deer in Hunt County were detected on release sites associated with the breeding facility where CWD was originally discovered, the department is confident that a two-mile CZ radius is sufficient because the likely source of the infected animals is known.
  • WILDLIFE – CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE – COMPREHENSIVE RULES 31 TAC §65.99 – The adopted rule authorizes the commission to establish the conditions of a deer management permit for white-tailed and mule deer, respectively; and §61.021, which provides that no person may possess a game animal at any time or in any place except as permitted under a proclamation of the commission. The agency certifies that legal counsel has reviewed the adoption and found it to be a valid exercise of the agency’s legal authority.