Tennessee Wildlife Commission previews hunting seasons, outlines long-term shift in chronic wasting disease strategy

The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency on Thursday previewed proposed hunting seasons for 2025–26 and described a deliberate, multi-year approach to managing chronic wasting disease (CWD), while saying agency recommendations for most deer and turkey seasons will remain unchanged for the coming year.

Assistant Chief for Game Species Mark McBride told the Tennessee Wildlife Commission that the agency is moving to an ‘‘adaptive harvest management’’ model that uses multi-year trends and population modeling to set seasons, rather than reacting to single-year harvest swings. McBride said the division is not recommending changes to deer and turkey seasons for the 2025–26 cycle and asked commissioners to adopt a multi-year rhythm to allow the models to “learn” from predictions versus actual outcomes.

Why it matters: The commission sets seasons that affect tens of thousands of hunters, influence wildlife populations statewide and guide enforcement and habitat work. The agency’s stated shift — from short-term, aggressive harvest incentives in CWD-positive areas toward restoring long-term hunter trust and using structured science — could change how regulators respond to new detections and how hunters experience seasons in West Tennessee and other places where CWD has been found.

Key details - Mark McBride, assistant chief for game species, said staff collected almost 2,500 public comments on season proposals and used a new online input tool to route topic-specific comments to the relevant coordinators. He told commissioners nearly 1,000 people submitted comments and staff compiled more than 2,500 discrete comments across topics. - On CWD testing, TWRA staff reported sampling just under 15,000 deer in the most recent season, with 753 positives statewide. McBride said roughly 86% of positive samples were from the Fayette and Hardeman County core CWD area, and staff noted new detections in Carroll, Hardin and northern Gibson counties and a recent detection on President's Island; the agency said it will provide more information on President's Island at the April meeting. - The agency described continuing CWD response measures including a statewide free-testing program, an Earn‑A‑Buck program (extra buck tags for submitted doe samples in positive counties), processing vouchers for hunters with positive animals, targeted removal programs in cooperation with USDA Wildlife Services, and a restructured landowner management permit. McBride said 55 landowner removal permits have been issued to date. - On bear regulations the agency proposed a minor calendar change for Bear Hunt Zone 2, moving nine late-season days earlier into October to increase overlap with higher bear activity; staff framed this as an effort to increase effectiveness rather than a broad regulatory change. - On turkeys, McBride said the agency is not recommending changes for the coming season: “We’re not recommending any changes to the turkey season either,” he said, adding the division uses hunter effort surveys (responses from roughly 10,000 returned surveys) to interpret harvest numbers.

Debate and public input - Commissioners asked multiple technical questions about CWD dynamics and hunter behavior. Commissioner Brad Box summarized scientific concerns about bucks’ role in CWD spread and said the outlook in the Fayette/Hardeman core is “bleak.” McBride agreed that long-term impacts to age structure are evident in portions of those counties and reiterated the need for a coordinated, long-term approach. - Several public commentators told the commission their perspectives on seasons and hunting access. Fred Walker proposed a flintlock-only season late in January to draw out-of-state hunters and tourism; Bill Kelly, a Tipton County farmer, urged aggressive action on wild hogs and criticized CWD regulations for harming hunter interest and the age structure of deer in the region; other hunters asked the commission to consider calendar adjustments to ease processor capacity constraints around Thanksgiving.

Process and next steps - The preview presented at Buffalo Ridge is advisory: the commission will consider and vote on final proclamations at the April meeting in Nashville. The agency said it will post red‑line proclamations and the full packet, including the public-comment spreadsheet and the verbatim proclamations, in advance of that meeting.

Ending note - Staff emphasized that the adaptive harvest management approach is intended to increase transparency and stability: by making predictions, comparing outcomes and holding management units constant, staff said they can identify which changes actually affect populations and which are artifacts of year-to-year variability.