Journal Article

Chronic Wasting Disease Drives Population Decline of White-Tailed Deer

Cook, Walter E., Lindzey, Frederick G., Grogan, Ronald G., Kreeger, Terry J., Edmunds, David R., Schumaker, Brant A., Cornish, Todd E., Kauffman, Matthew J.

2016

Overview

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is an invariably fatal transmissible spongiform encephalopathy of white-tailed deer, mule deer, elk, and moose. Despite a 100% fatality rate, areas of high prevalence, and increasingly expanding geographic endemic areas, little is known about the population-level effects of CWD in deer. To investigate these effects, we tested the null hypothesis that high prevalence CWD did not negatively impact white-tailed deer population sustainability. The specific objectives of the study were to monitor CWD-positive and CWD-negative white-tailed deer in a high-prevalence CWD area longitudinally via radio-telemetry and global positioning system (GPS) collars. For the two populations, we determined the following: a) demographic and disease indices, b) annual survival, and c) finite rate of population growth (λ). The CWD prevalence was higher in females (42%) than males (28.8%) and hunter harvest and clinical CWD were the most frequent causes of mortality, with CWD-positive deer over-represented in harvest and total mortalities. Survival was significantly lower for CWD-positive deer and separately by sex; CWD-positive deer were 4.5 times more likely to die annually than CWD-negative deer while bucks were 1.7 times more likely to die than does. Population λ was 0.896 (0.859-0.980), which indicated a 10.4% annual decline. We show that a chronic disease that becomes endemic in wildlife populations has the potential to be population-limiting and the strong population-level effects of CWD suggest affected populations are not sustainable at high disease prevalence under current harvest levels.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Alces alces / Animals / Animals, Wild / Biology and Life Sciences / Chronic diseases / Chronic illnesses / Chronic wasting disease / Collars / Deer / Demographic aspects / Demographics / Diseases and pests / Elk / Encephalopathy / Female / Females / Global Positioning System / Global positioning systems / GPS / Male / Males / Medicine and Health Sciences / Mortality / Null hypothesis / Odocoileus / Population decline / Population Density / Population growth / Pregnancy / Prevalence / Remote Sensing Technology - methods / Risk factors / Satellite navigation systems / Spongiform encephalopathy / Survival / Sustainability / Telemetry / Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy / Wasting Disease, Chronic - epidemiology / White-tailed deer / Wildlife / Wildlife management