Managing disease and agricultural damage of deer through applied research: one team’s contribution

Populations of cervids in many areas in North America, especially relative to white-tailed deer, have expanded substantially, resulting in increased damage to agriculture, altered plant communities, and higher prevalence of disease within cervid populations and at wildlife–livestock interfaces. The efforts of research biologists with the National Wildlife Research Center of the United States Department of Agriculture, Animal Plant and Animal Health Inspection Service, Wildlife Services have played a role in developing practical and scientifically robust strategies for addressing these issues. Here we review and synthesize these efforts within the broad key themes of: mitigation of disease transmission and crop damage; disease ecology and management; development of research and management tools and strategies; and deer ecology and management. Collectively, these lines of investigation have led to practical tools and strategies that are being employed by practitioners and informing modern cervid management based on scientific evidence and risk-orientated strategies. We also identify outstanding challenges and future research directions, especially as related to scalable biosecurity and the integration of multiple non-lethal and lethal methods to achieve management goals.