Form Submission: Participation Entry

In recent decades, chronic wasting disease (CWD) has gained increasing recognition as a wildlife disease meriting serious concern. A fatal prion disease of cervids (e.g., white-tailed deer, mule deer, elk), CWD's self-sustaining epidemics can devastate populations, and total eradication of it is exceedingly difficult once it's established in an area. First detected in 1967, CWD has spread across the U.S., into Canada, and overseas, yet much remains unknown about it, including numerous epidemiological aspects as well as its potential effects on human society and the natural world. Many of these issues (e.g., continued disease spread, sluggish scientific revelations) are indicative of defective approaches by government agencies to manage this disease, so analyzing the policy process related to CWD allows us to illuminate the problems — ordinary, governance, and constitutive — currently obstructing its effective management.