Chronic Wasting Disease Effects on a Breeding Season Behavior in White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus)

Authors

Miranda Hsiang-Ning Jacobson Huang, Mississippi State UniversityFollow
Stephen Demarais, Mississippi State UniversityFollow
Bronson K. Strickland, Mississippi State UniversityFollow
Allan Houston, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Alejandro Banda, Mississippi State University
Kurt C. VerCauteren, United States Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Wildlife Services, National Wildlife Research Center, Fort Collins, ColoradoFollow

ORCID IDs

Huang https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8891-9772

Strickland https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3119-2514

VerCauteren https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4783-493X

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2024

Citation

Journal of Mammalogy (2024) 105: 1,175-1,181

doi: 10.1093/jmammal/gyae050

Associate editor: Guiming Wang

Data file is available at: https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/cfr-publications/25/

Comments

United States government work

Abstract

Wildlife disease outbreaks can lead to population declines, which are usually attributed to increased direct or indirect mortality. Alternatively, behavior associated with sickness can lead to social isolation, potentially decreasing fitness of affected individuals. A useful case study to examine this dynamic is chronic wasting disease (CWD), a neurological disease of cervids, known to affect behavior and movement. In this study, we monitored scraping, a White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus; WTD) breeding season behavior, in an area of high CWD prevalence to determine if this reproductive behavior is affected by CWD. At 107 scrape sites, we detected 3,063 scrape interactions and 218 unique bucks. Bucks engaged with scrapes most often, performing 73% of interactions—compared to 23% by does, and 4% by fawns. Twenty-one bucks captured on camera traps at scrape sites were harvested through recreational hunting, 13 testing CWDpositive and 8 CWD not-detected. We found no significant effect of CWD status on specific scraping behaviors. There may, however, have been population-level effects, with shifts toward greater proportions of scraping by yearling bucks and during daylight hours compared to findings from past studies.