Developing a decision support tool to assess and predict hunter behavioral dynamics and responses to CWD in Wisconsin
This project is building a modeling tool that helps wildlife managers predict and influence hunter behavior, turning small shifts in harvest patterns into a powerful lever for controlling chronic wasting disease.
What is the issue?
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is one of the most challenging issues facing state wildlife management agencies today. Expanding and focusing hunter harvest in CWD-affected areas is one of the most effective tools states and Tribal Nations have for reducing cervid densities and disease transmission. However, wildlife agencies currently lack formal, science-based tools to understand hunter behavior, identify what drives behavioral change, and predict how hunters will respond to CWD surveillance and management actions.
What is at stake?
In Wisconsin, hunter numbers and participation rates have declined significantly over the last two decades, and further declines are expected. Hunters are essential to sustaining healthy cervid populations and slowing the spread of CWD, both as active participants in management efforts and as influential stakeholders in the political and legislative landscape around cervid management. Without better tools for understanding hunter behavior and incorporating it into management models and decisions, agencies risk adopting strategies that fail to control CWD, erode public trust, reduce harvest participation, and ultimately undermine long-term management goals.
What is our approach?
The project will build a self-contained Bayesian model using de-identified data on hunting license sales, harvest, county residency, and CWD testing status. The model will estimate how strongly different factors—age, travel distance, license type, deer abundance, prior harvest success, and CWD detection status—influence hunters' decisions. It builds on an existing framework for modeling hunter harvest, originally developed for adaptive harvest management of waterfowl and later adapted by NWHC and its partners into a systems model of CWD. Working with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR), the team will translate this model into a predictive tool with a user-friendly interface, allowing managers to visualize trends and simulate the outcomes of different management interventions to inform decision-making.
What are the benefits?
The project will give WDNR a support tool for deer population management, CWD response, and efforts to boost hunter recruitment, retention, and reactivation (R3) rates. Estimates of how different factors shape hunter behavior will feed into the CWD systems model, sharpening its ability to help state agencies predict the effects of management decisions on hunter behavior, deer populations, and CWD spread.
What have we accomplished?
The CWD systems model, developed jointly by USGS, the University of Montana, WDNR, the Missouri Department of Conservation, and private industry partners, has already shown that modest, targeted shifts in hunter behavior can meaningfully reduce deer densities and CWD prevalence, leading to healthier herds and better conditions for hunters. In Wisconsin, the model found that if just one in three active hunters harvested one additional antlerless deer per season, CWD prevalence could drop by 15% or more over 10 years compared to baseline, with no other changes to management practices. This highlights the outsized potential of small shifts in hunter behavior to drive substantial change across the broader system.
What are the next steps?
The project is moving forward with WDNR partners, starting with discussions on data management and the development of tools to monitor trends in hunter behavior. Once data analysis is complete and an accessible decision-maker interface is built, the team will publish a peer-reviewed paper describing the framework, so other state and Tribal agencies can adopt similar approaches to understand and predict hunter dynamics within their own management landscapes.
This project is building a modeling tool that helps wildlife managers predict and influence hunter behavior, turning small shifts in harvest patterns into a powerful lever for controlling chronic wasting disease.
What is the issue?
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is one of the most challenging issues facing state wildlife management agencies today. Expanding and focusing hunter harvest in CWD-affected areas is one of the most effective tools states and Tribal Nations have for reducing cervid densities and disease transmission. However, wildlife agencies currently lack formal, science-based tools to understand hunter behavior, identify what drives behavioral change, and predict how hunters will respond to CWD surveillance and management actions.
What is at stake?
In Wisconsin, hunter numbers and participation rates have declined significantly over the last two decades, and further declines are expected. Hunters are essential to sustaining healthy cervid populations and slowing the spread of CWD, both as active participants in management efforts and as influential stakeholders in the political and legislative landscape around cervid management. Without better tools for understanding hunter behavior and incorporating it into management models and decisions, agencies risk adopting strategies that fail to control CWD, erode public trust, reduce harvest participation, and ultimately undermine long-term management goals.
What is our approach?
The project will build a self-contained Bayesian model using de-identified data on hunting license sales, harvest, county residency, and CWD testing status. The model will estimate how strongly different factors—age, travel distance, license type, deer abundance, prior harvest success, and CWD detection status—influence hunters' decisions. It builds on an existing framework for modeling hunter harvest, originally developed for adaptive harvest management of waterfowl and later adapted by NWHC and its partners into a systems model of CWD. Working with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR), the team will translate this model into a predictive tool with a user-friendly interface, allowing managers to visualize trends and simulate the outcomes of different management interventions to inform decision-making.
What are the benefits?
The project will give WDNR a support tool for deer population management, CWD response, and efforts to boost hunter recruitment, retention, and reactivation (R3) rates. Estimates of how different factors shape hunter behavior will feed into the CWD systems model, sharpening its ability to help state agencies predict the effects of management decisions on hunter behavior, deer populations, and CWD spread.
What have we accomplished?
The CWD systems model, developed jointly by USGS, the University of Montana, WDNR, the Missouri Department of Conservation, and private industry partners, has already shown that modest, targeted shifts in hunter behavior can meaningfully reduce deer densities and CWD prevalence, leading to healthier herds and better conditions for hunters. In Wisconsin, the model found that if just one in three active hunters harvested one additional antlerless deer per season, CWD prevalence could drop by 15% or more over 10 years compared to baseline, with no other changes to management practices. This highlights the outsized potential of small shifts in hunter behavior to drive substantial change across the broader system.
What are the next steps?
The project is moving forward with WDNR partners, starting with discussions on data management and the development of tools to monitor trends in hunter behavior. Once data analysis is complete and an accessible decision-maker interface is built, the team will publish a peer-reviewed paper describing the framework, so other state and Tribal agencies can adopt similar approaches to understand and predict hunter dynamics within their own management landscapes.