Welcome to the Surveillance Optimization Project for Chronic Wasting Disease

The Surveillance Optimization Project for Chronic wasting disease (CWD) began in 2020 to address the needs of wildlife agencies across North America responding to the challenges posed by CWD.

What is CWD?

CWD is a fatal disease of white-tailed deer and other cervid species. Since 1967, when the disease was first discovered in captive mule deer in Colorado, CWD has spread across North America. To protect native North American cervid populations, wildlife agencies are trying to slow the spread of the disease and prevent introduction to new areas. However, these goals have proven extremely difficult.

Responding to the Challenge

Disease surveillance, including efforts to detect new introductions quickly and measure changes in disease prevalence in areas where the disease exists, is an essential component disease response and management efforts.

But where should wildlife agencies focus their efforts? How much sampling is enough to determine if an area is ‘free of disease’ or to determine if the prevalence is increasing or decreasing? What does an efficient and effective disease surveillance plan look like? These are among the many questions that wildlife agencies are asking and that need to be addressed.

Enter SOP4CWD

The Surveillance Optimization Project for Chronic Wasting Disease (SOP4CWD) is our attempt to answer these questions and provide wildlife agencies with the technological and quantitative tools they desire. SOP4CWD collaborators are applying methods from mathematical modeling and data science to address the challenges of disease surveillance by merging analytical techniques, including risk weighting, Bayesian modeling, and geospatial analysis, with machine learning algorithms.

SOP4CWD is a truly collaborative effort,involving wildlife agencies, data scientists, modelers, and application developers from across North America. SOP4CWD provides an open forum for sharing ideas, encouraging conversation, and proposing novel solutions. SOP4CWD also facilitates data sharing among wildlife agencies to increase situational awareness, and data sharing with researchers so that they may develop new knowledge about CWD and new tools for responding to it.