In 2002, samples from an emaciated, free-ranging mule deer found in White Sands, New Mexico, tested positive for CWD (1, 19).
Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) include bovine spongiform encephalopathy, ovine scrapie, human Creuzfeldt Jakob disease and chronic wasting disease (CWD) 1, 2 in mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and Rocky Mountain elk (Cervus elaphus).
An emerging wildlife epizootic of chronic wasting disease (CWD) (1 ), a contagious prion disease among mule deer, white-tailed deer, and Rocky Mountain elk, has potential public health implications (2 – 5 ).
As yet, no cases of human prion disease have been linked with CWD (5, 13 – 15 ), and natural transmission of CWD to humans or traditional domestic livestock seems unlikely (2, 3, 5, 12, 14, 16, 17 ).
However, squirrel monkeys could be infected with CWD [24], and increasing evidence points to the existence of different CWD isolates [25], [26].
Only 2 CWD (14 %) responded "No".
One-year-old burns, previously of mixedwood composition, had significantly more CWD (342.61±60.60 m3/ha) than mature mixed forests (160.80±15.43 m3/handand recent clearcuts (111.97±35.14 m3/ha).
Using a randomized complete block design, 1 of the following treatments was assigned to 9.3-ha plots: removal (n = 3; all downed CWD ≥10 cm in diameter and ≥60 cm long removed), downed addition (n = 3; five-fold increase in volume of down CWD), snag (n = 3; 10-fold increase in volume of standing dead CWD), and control (n = 3; unmanipulated).
Previously, PrPres has been detected in the skin from animals with experimental or naturally occurring scrapie [47] as well as in the antler velvet of elk affected by CWD [48].
Vascellari et al reported the presence of the pathological prion protein in both major and minor salivary glands of naturally and experimentally infected sheep [43], and we have made similar observations in the olfactory mucosa of ferrets experimentally infected with CWD [44] and in the taste buds of deer (Haley, NJ, personal communication).
Previous studies have postulated that environmental contamination by excreta from infected cervids seems the most plausible explanation for the dissemination of CWD [70], yet at 19 months pi we were not able to detect PrPCWD in the three deer inoculated with urine and feces.
