IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0278366.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The economic costs of chronic wasting disease in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Scott J Chiavacci

Abstract

Cervids are economically important to a wide range of stakeholders and rights holders in the United States. The continued expansion of chronic wasting disease (CWD), a fatal neurodegenerative disease affecting wild and farmed cervids, poses a direct and indirect threat to state and federal government agency operations and cervid related economic activity. However, the scale of this disease’s direct economic costs is largely unknown. I synthesized existing publicly available data and stakeholder-provided data to estimate CWD’s costs within the continental United States. Federal government agencies collectively spent over $284.1 million on CWD-related efforts between 2000 and 2021, with $203.6 million of this total being spent by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. In fiscal year 2020, state natural resources agencies and state agriculture/animal health agencies spent over $25.5 million and $2.9 million, respectively, on CWD-related work. Natural resources agencies in states with known CWD cases spent over 8 times as much on CWD as agencies from states with no known cases. The farmed cervid industry spent at least $307,950 on CWD sampling in 2020, though a lack of available data prevented a complete assessment of costs to this industry. Based on limited data, CWD’s economic effects on the hunting industry (i.e., outfitters and guides, companies leasing land to cervid hunters), may be negligible at this time. Overall, however, the realized economic costs of CWD appear considerable, and it is likely that the number of stakeholders financially affected by this disease and regulations meant to stem its spread will continue to grow. By understanding the current economic impacts of CWD, we are better positioned to assess the costs and benefits of investments in management and research and to understand the magnitude of this disease’s broader societal impacts.

Suggested Citation

  • Scott J Chiavacci, 2022. "The economic costs of chronic wasting disease in the United States," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(12), pages 1-18, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0278366
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0278366
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0278366
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0278366&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0278366?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thuy Truong & Wiktor Adamowicz & Peter C. Boxall, 2018. "Modelling the Effect of Chronic Wasting Disease on Recreational Hunting Site Choice Preferences and Choice Set Formation over Time," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 70(1), pages 271-295, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Edenbrandt, Anna Kristina & Lagerkvist, Carl-Johan & Lüken, Malte & Orquin, Jacob L., 2022. "Seen but not considered? Awareness and consideration in choice analysis," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    2. Börger, Tobias & Ngoc, Quach Thi Khanh & Kuhfuss, Laure & Hien, Tang Thi & Hanley, Nick & Campbell, Danny, 2021. "Preferences for coastal and marine conservation in Vietnam: Accounting for differences in individual choice set formation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0278366. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.