Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a fatal prion disease of cervids, considered to be one of the greatest threats to white-tailed deer populations. Effective management for CWD hinges on understanding how abundance, survival and recruitment are affected by the disease. Using 3 years of data from GPS collars, radio telemetry, trail cameras, and CWD testing of both live and deceased deer, we investigated the effects of CWD on population demographics for a white-tailed deer population in Arkansas’ CWD management zone. We analyzed our data using an integrated hierarchical model in a Bayesian framework to estimate survival, recruitment, movement and disease transmission across 3 study sites with different levels of CWD prevalence. Sample CWD prevalence from both ante- and postmortem sample testing was >20%. Deer that tested positive for CWD had lower annual survival and reproductive rates than presumed negative deer. Populations with the highest prevalence of CWD had lower densities and higher female to male sex ratios. Our results provide insights into the dynamics of CWD in the Southeastern United States and suggest CWD is working in concert with environmental factors to alter age structure and reduce population abundance.
