Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) infects and kills ungulates (deer, elk, moose), and has been spreading across North America for the past 20 years. Some ungulate populations have declined because of CWD and there are no viable vaccines or treatments for this disease. Therefore, tools that assist wildlife managers in preventing and mitigating CWD can be powerful assets in protecting our nation’s big game species. Transmission can occur between individuals, so USGS NOROCK scientists are developing tools that will assist partners in preventing and mitigating CWD by quantifying ungulate densities and ranking relative disease risk across management units.
Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) has spread across much of North America over the last two decades leading to declining populations of deer, elk, and moose. Infected animals suffer neurological degeneration resulting in behavioral changes like decreased social interaction, weight loss, and, eventually, death. CWD is caused by improperly folded, infectious proteins found in ungulate brain and central nervous system tissue called prions. There are no effective vaccines or treatments for CWD, so evaluating factors that may influence disease transmission and understanding CWD risk to ungulate herds would be valuable tools for wildlife managers.
CWD can be transmitted from infected to uninfected individuals, so understanding the factors that influence animal congregation or how animals interact within a herd could be useful in disease mitigation. Recent USGS research indicates that certain activities, like supplemental winter feeding, can be a stronger driver than weather variables in determining how close together elk are, and the length of time pairs of elk can spend in proximity to each other. Using information like this, wildlife managers may be able to reduce disease risk through adaptive management of population densities.
Future research will improve an analysis platform developed in 2020 for the statistical software R and use it to quantify ungulate densities and concentrations at multiple Department of Interior (DOI) bureaus (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management) and potentially tribal or state-managed units from existing GPS location data as well as existing and new satellite imagery. We have begun work with Glacier National Park in Montana, and Fossil Butte National Monument the National Elk Refuge in Wyoming.
Based on these data, we will rank the relative disease risk for multiple management units, evaluate the success of adaptive management efforts in areas with appropriate data, and identify collaborators to co-design a multi-population study to better quantify the connections among ungulate density, management, and CWD ecology. Although there are currently no approaches to treat CWD, we will provide wildlife managers valuable information they can use to develop a disease prevention and mitigation program.
For more information on NOROCK chronic wasting disease research, click here.
- Overview
Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) infects and kills ungulates (deer, elk, moose), and has been spreading across North America for the past 20 years. Some ungulate populations have declined because of CWD and there are no viable vaccines or treatments for this disease. Therefore, tools that assist wildlife managers in preventing and mitigating CWD can be powerful assets in protecting our nation’s big game species. Transmission can occur between individuals, so USGS NOROCK scientists are developing tools that will assist partners in preventing and mitigating CWD by quantifying ungulate densities and ranking relative disease risk across management units.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain.Elk on National Elk Refuge, Wyoming. (Credit: Aaron Johnston, USGS. Public domain.) Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) has spread across much of North America over the last two decades leading to declining populations of deer, elk, and moose. Infected animals suffer neurological degeneration resulting in behavioral changes like decreased social interaction, weight loss, and, eventually, death. CWD is caused by improperly folded, infectious proteins found in ungulate brain and central nervous system tissue called prions. There are no effective vaccines or treatments for CWD, so evaluating factors that may influence disease transmission and understanding CWD risk to ungulate herds would be valuable tools for wildlife managers.
CWD can be transmitted from infected to uninfected individuals, so understanding the factors that influence animal congregation or how animals interact within a herd could be useful in disease mitigation. Recent USGS research indicates that certain activities, like supplemental winter feeding, can be a stronger driver than weather variables in determining how close together elk are, and the length of time pairs of elk can spend in proximity to each other. Using information like this, wildlife managers may be able to reduce disease risk through adaptive management of population densities.
Sources/Usage: Public Domain.Mule deer investigating a game camera in Madison Valley, Montana. (Public domain.) Future research will improve an analysis platform developed in 2020 for the statistical software R and use it to quantify ungulate densities and concentrations at multiple Department of Interior (DOI) bureaus (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management) and potentially tribal or state-managed units from existing GPS location data as well as existing and new satellite imagery. We have begun work with Glacier National Park in Montana, and Fossil Butte National Monument the National Elk Refuge in Wyoming.
Based on these data, we will rank the relative disease risk for multiple management units, evaluate the success of adaptive management efforts in areas with appropriate data, and identify collaborators to co-design a multi-population study to better quantify the connections among ungulate density, management, and CWD ecology. Although there are currently no approaches to treat CWD, we will provide wildlife managers valuable information they can use to develop a disease prevention and mitigation program.
For more information on NOROCK chronic wasting disease research, click here.
- Publications