Chronic wasting disease is a fatal prion disease spreading through North American deer populations. Its welfare impacts on individual deer and management responses raise important questions for wildlife management.
Chronic wasting disease causes prolonged, terminal neurological deterioration in affected deer - a welfare catastrophe that unfolds over months as infected animals progressively lose condition, coordination, and normal behavior before dying. The disease is currently untreatable and incurable. Management responses including targeted culling of affected populations, while acutely harmful to individual animals, may prevent wider spread that would create even larger-scale welfare harm. The emerging presence of CWD in European cervid populations creates a new wildlife welfare emergency that requires rapid development of surveillance, management, and communication infrastructure.