Deer-vehicle Collisions

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a prion disease that effects whitetail deer, most commonly when deer populations are larger than what their ecosystem can handle.

Prion diseases are progressive neurodegenerative disorders that progress rapidly and are always fatal.

Managing the population of whitetail deer in Fulton, Forsyth, Gwinnett and Cobb County is essential to improving the overall health of our ecosystem. Current deer populations have exhausted the natural resource available to them. This is a problem in two ways, it leads to malnourished deer that are more susceptible to diseases while also a reduction in forest structure, native plants, an increase in invasive species (Like Kudzu) and a higher rate of tick transmitted Lyme disease which we will further detail below.

If you wish to dive deeper into this subject I highly recommend reading a Smithsonian book, “The Science of Overabundance: Deer Ecology and Population Management”.

Deer population directly correlates with Lyme disease, you can read more in-depth on this subject in a study conducted by Howard J. Kilpatrick Ph.D. of the University of Connecticut by clicking here

“White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus Zimmerman), serve as the primary host for the adult blacklegged tick (Ixodes scapularis Say), the vector for Lyme disease, human babesiosis, and human granulocytic anaplasmosis.”

“Number of resident-reported cases of Lyme disease per 100 households was strongly correlated to deer density in the community. Reducing deer density to 5.1 deer per square kilometer resulted in a 76% reduction in tick abundance, 70% reduction in the entomological risk index, and 80% reduction in resident-reported cases of Lyme disease in the community from before to after a hunt was initiated.”