Kentucky Fish and Wildlife has finalized a rewrite of 301 KAR 2:176 that broadens the state’s landowner-damage-tag process from a deer-only framework to a wildlife-wide framework, part of a package of amended regulations that took effect June 4, 2026.
The chapter’s new title — ‘Wildlife causing damage and landowner designee process’ — replaces the prior ‘Deer control tags, deer destruction permits, landowner designees.’ The change reflects what has been true in practice for several years: landowners in Kentucky face crop and property damage from a wider range of species than the old chapter recognized, and the department wanted a single regulation to govern the tag, permit, and designee process across the full list.
The framework preserves the two-track structure Kentucky landowners already know. In-season Control Tags remain the primary tool for antlerless deer damage during open hunting seasons — the tags issue to landowners whose property is inside a zone where the standard antlerless quota is limited, and each tag is reported individually through the Telecheck system to keep harvest data clean. Out-of-season Destruction Tags remain the backstop for cases where damage is severe enough that the department authorizes take outside a regular season, and those tags flow through the local regional biologist or game warden.
Kentucky landowners who report damage this fall will still go through the same intake process: a call to the local regional biologist or game warden, a site visit, and a documented recommendation that may include exclusion, repellents, hunting pressure, in-season control tags, or out-of-season destruction tags. The revised chapter aligns the paperwork the department produces at that visit with the broader authority landowners already hold under KRS 150.170(7), which lets the landowner, spouse, dependent children, or a designated third party take wildlife causing damage to the property.
For hunters who serve as landowner designees, the practical effect of the rewrite is that a single administrative chapter now backs their authority to help across species. That reduces the odds of a designee running into a mismatch between the landowner’s problem, the tag the department has ready to issue, and the regulation that authorizes the take.
