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Big Cats as Nature’s Check Against Disease

A summary of theoretical, empirical, and experimental evidence supporting predator cleansing of CWD in deer and elk herds by mountain lions and wolves. Predator cleansing is the idea or hypothesis that predators, especially apex carnivores sitting atop their ecosystem’s food … read more

Biodetection of an odor signature in white-tailed deer associated with infection by chronic wasting disease prions

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) has become a major concern among those involved in managing wild and captive cervid populations. CWD is a fatal, highly transmissible spongiform encephalopathy caused by an abnormally folded protein, called a prion. Prions are present in … read more

Susceptibility of Beavers to Chronic Wasting Disease

Chronic wasting disease is increasing across the landscape, and this is threatening other wildlife species in addition to cervids. Our objective was to evaluate the possibility that chronic wasting disease could transmit to beavers. Our results indicate that beavers are … read more

Examination of the interaction between age-specific predation and chronic disease in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

The patterns of parasite infections in wildlife hosts often have an age component. For example, the prevalence of chronic infections tends to skew towards older individuals that have had a longer amount of time to be exposed (e.g. Heisey et … read more

The Role of Wolves in Regulating a Chronic Non-communicable Disease, Osteoarthritis, in Prey Populations

It is widely accepted that predators disproportionately prey on individuals that are old, weak, diseased or injured. By selectively removing individuals with diseases, predators may play an important role in regulating the overall health of prey populations. However, that idea … read more

Reduction of Chronic Wasting Disease Prion Seeding Activity following Digestion by Mountain Lions

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a transmissible prion disease first observed in the 1960s in North America. This invariably fatal disease affects multiple cervid species in the wild and in captivity. In addition to the several known transmission pathways involving … read more

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