SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) – Since deer infected with chronic wasting disease were found in New York, Massachusetts wildlife officials are taking steps to help prevent the condition from showing up in the Bay State.

Following the lead of Vermont, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, Massachusetts has decided to restrict the importation of deer and elk carcasses from states where chronic wasting disease has been reported.

The disease, which hits a deer’s nervous system and causes it to become emaciated and display abnormal behavior before dying, spreads through animal-to-animal contact. It does not harm humans.

“If someone brings home an infected deer carcass and discards their scraps in the back corner of their farm, another deer could go through that and become infected,” said Bill Woytek, the deer project leader for the state’s Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. “That’s the scare we have.”

Chronic wasting disease was first spotted in Colorado in the late 1960s, and didn’t appear east of the Mississippi River in a wild herd until 2002 in Wisconsin. Since then, it has been found in Illinois and, most recently in New York, where cases were detected in the spring.

Massachusetts already has a four-year-old ban on importing live deer into the state, an earlier precaution taken when the disease started creeping eastward.

But in response to the findings in bordering New York, Fisheries and Wildlife officials imposed the emergency restrictions last month. Exceptions to the ban include deboned meat, cleaned skull caps and hides.

“We’re not allowing any nervous tissues, because that’s where chronic wasting disease resides,” Woytek said.

The state will hold a public hearing in Pittsfield on Sept. 7 to solicit public comments on the new rules. Fisheries and Wildlife officials will then vote to decide if the emergency regulations should be made permanent, Woytek said.

New Hampshire, Vermont and Rhode Island have all made the ban permanent, he said.

“The biggest potential for the spread of chronic wasting disease is in the movement of infected captive deer or the escape of captive deer into the wild,” said Brian Murphy, a wildlife biologist and executive director of the Quality Deer Management Association, a nonprofit wildlife conservation organization based in Athens, Ga. “But another potential source of infection is the movement of infected deer parts. State agencies that are imposing these bans are doing the right thing.”

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