It looks like a lot of hard-earned venison might go to waste in hunters’ freezers this year.

That’s because the U.S. is experiencing a massive shortage of testing kits used for detecting chronic wasting disease in hunter-harvested deer. The shortage will apparently last well into 2023. The shortage is due to supply-chain issues centered around raw materials used in the test kits. The manufacturer, California’s Bio-Rad Laboratories, expects more kits to be available by the end of February.

This news comes despite the fact legislators passed the bipartisan $350 million Chronic Wasting Disease Research and Management Act in December.

Before the shortage, the testing turnaround time for hunter-harvested deer in Unit CWD was 8 to 12 days., according to a press release issued by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency. The state currently has more than 2,200 hunter-submitted samples awaiting testing. There has been no timeline given for when those samples will be processed, meaning that hunters who saved the meat from those deer will be stuck waiting for results — indefinitely.

The shortage is affecting all whitetail hunting states, as nearly all of the tests come from a private-sector lab. According to one report, the Veterinary Diagnostics Laboratory at the University of Minnesota said, “There is currently a testing delay due to a shortage of raw materials. Normally, turnaround time for CWD is approximately 3 to 6 weeks. This will now be longer for an undefined period of time.”

In Texas, the Parks & Wildlife Department issued a statement apologizing for the delay, adding that it is actively working with the National Veterinary Services Laboratory to receive validated kits. “TVMDL will expedite testing as soon as kits are received,” the department said in a release.

Texas is home to approximately 5.3 million white-tailed deer. As of 2022, 371 deer (both wild and captive) had tested positive for the disease which the Centers for Disease Control has said does not pose a human-health risk.