ABSTRACT Chronic wasting disease (CWD) has impacted wildlife management in Canada. An integral partner in CWD management is the hunting community. This article empirically explored the response of Alberta mule deer hunters to CWD by modeling license application trends in areas where CWD has been positively detected in wild cervids. The relationship between resident draw applications and covariates of CWD prevalence, hunting quotas, draw success rates, licenses, and environmental indicators was examined with a fixed effects (FE) regression model. Results indicated that hunters are continuing to apply to hunt mule deer in areas with CWD and this relationship is not statistically impacted by the increasing prevalence of CWD. This outcome may be because CWD prevalence in Alberta is relatively low (but increasing), which is consistent with the literature indicating that few hunters avoid CWD zones until prevalence increases dramatically. Results also suggest that hunter-based strategies remain effective options for management.

中文翻译：

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阿尔伯塔省猎人对慢性消耗性疾病反应的实证分析

摘要 慢性消耗性疾病 (CWD) 已经影响了加拿大的野生动物管理。CWD 管理中不可或缺的合作伙伴是狩猎社区。本文通过对在野生鹿科动物中检测到 CWD 的地区的许可证申请趋势进行建模，凭经验探讨了艾伯塔长耳鹿猎人对 CWD 的反应。居民抽签申请与 CWD 流行、狩猎配额、抽签成功率、许可证和环境指标的协变量之间的关系通过固定效应 (FE) 回归模型进行了检查。结果表明，在 CWD 地区，猎人继续申请狩猎骡鹿，这种关系在统计上不受 CWD 流行率增加的影响。这一结果可能是因为艾伯塔省的 CWD 流行率相对较低（但正在增加），这与文献一致，表明很少猎人会避开 CWD 区域，直到流行率急剧增加。结果还表明，基于猎人的策略仍然是有效的管理选择。