Projects explore CWD in Pennsylvania

Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) – an always-fatal and untreatable neurological disease affecting whitetailed deer and elk – continues to expand across Pennsylvania.

But it's not going unchallenged. Several research initiatives launching this year aim to increase understanding of CWD and develop tools to confront it.

The first project will look at the impact of CWD on deer in Bedford and Fulton counties, which have produced about 90% of known Cwd-positive deer since the disease's discovery in Pennsylvania in 2012.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission, in cooperation with the

Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at Penn State University and the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine's (Penn Vet) Wildlife Futures Program, will capture and outfit deer with GPS collars over three years starting this winter. Deer will be monitored to examine their fates.

“Although it is unfortunate that CWD is now found in about one of every five hunterharvested adult deer in these counties, these circumstances do provide a higher probability of capturing, marking and monitoring individual Cwd-infected deer,” said Andrea Korman, the Game Commission's CWD Section Supervisor. “It will give us insight into the effects of CWD on Pennsylvania's deer population.”

A second project with the Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at Penn State University will use modeling to investigate how CWD may affect future deer populations and what actions can be taken to reduce any negative effects.

Right now, the ultimate impact of CWD on Pennsylvania's deer herd is unknown. Research from Wyoming has shown that CWD can negatively impact deer populations, but Pennsylvania's deer abundance and landscape are much different.

“Pennsylvania's landscape is ideal for white-tailed deer, so it is important for the Game Commission to have Pennsylvaniaspecific data when recommending CWD management actions,” said David Walter, Assistant Leader of the Pennsylvania Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit. “This study will provide those needed data.”

Two other research initiatives underway focus on improving CWD detection. Detection of CWD is particularly challenging.

CWD has a long incubation period. Infected animals might not show clinical signs of the disease for up to 18 to 24 months post-infection. In the meantime, they appear normal but continue spreading the disease.

What's more, there is no approved liveanimal test for CWD. Current testing methods can detect it only by examiningtissues – such as brainstem and lymph nodes – collected from dead animals.

But the Wildlife Futures Program, a wildlife health partnership between Penn Vet and the Pennsylvania Game Commission, is currently engaged in two projects aimed at improving the Game Commission's ability to detect CWD.

The first involves using dogs trained to sniff out CWD. Phase one of this initiative, conducted through Penn Vet's Working Dog Center, validated that dogs can distinguish feces from

Cwd-infected deer from those of deer that were not infected.

In phase two, the Wildlife Futures Program's K9 Conservation Team will move dogs into the field to determine their CWD scent detection on the landscape.

The second project involves refining a highly sensitive detection method for prions known as real-time quaking-induced conversion test (RT-QUIC for short) to detect CWD in feces and other tissues. This would expand the Game Commission's ability to track and monitor CWD.

“The evaluation of dogs' Cwd-detection