PRESENTER: Nancy Mathews, Professor and the Dean of RSENR at UVM.
TOPIC: When chronic wasting disease was discovered in central Wisconsin in 2002, panic and alarm set in among hunters and wildlife managers, alike. Wildlife managers predicted devastating declines in the deer herd and set their management goal as disease eradication. Warnings of CWD jumping the species' barrier to infect humans ran rampant. Lack of a measurable decline in the deer herd due to the disease, combined with a lack of scientific evidence to authenticate transmission to humans, led hunters to lose confidence in the wildlife managers' predictions. Moreover, hunters became irate over changes in hunting season that impacted the traditional rifle hunt over the Thanksgiving holiday. After 12 years, these "deer wars" continue, questions about transmission and eradication remain, while the battlefront has blurred.
DATE: February 27th, 2015, 12-1pm.
A Production of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, an affiliate of the Rubenstein School for Environment & Natural Resources at the University of Vermont.
The Gund Institute is a hub for transdisciplinary scholarship, based at the University of Vermont and comprising diverse faculty, students, and collaborators worldwide. Together we conduct research at the interface of ecological, social, and economic systems, develop creative, practical solutions to local and global environmental challenges, and provide future leaders with the tools and understanding necessary to navigate the transition to a sustainable society.
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