Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) has become an immense problem and threat to deer and elk populations throughout the United States. Hundreds of thousands of tests will be conducted on animals around the nation, however until now there has been no simple way for state wildlife managers to access the data.

The objective of this project was to assist the state fish and wildlife agencies in developing data transfer mechanisms that will allow the inclusion of their state data into a newly designed national clearinghouse. We conducted a national survey and coordination meeting of state agency CWD data managers to establish a common data sharing protocol and methodology, or data standard.

Using the results from the survey (44 states and 5 Canadian Provinces responded to the survey) and recommendations from CWD Coordinators at the CWD Data Standards meeting in Madison, we compiled and defined the important elements to be included in a national CWD data standard. Participants attending included 32 state agency and 11 federal agency representatives, one Native American Tribe representative, three Canadian provincial CWD data managers and 5 nongovernmental agencies interested in CWD.

The U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII), has used the recommended data transfer tools to develop a national CWD data clearinghouse from which nationwide trends can be analyzed and informed management decisions made.