CWD Biosecurity Assessment

Welcome to the eighth video in this series on Chronic Wasting Disease in cervid farms.

This video will provide a quick tutorial on the CWD biosecurity assessment tool for cervid producers to help strengthen their farm’s protections against CWD.

If you haven’t already, we recommend watching the first three videos in this series before continuing.

CWD can spread through a number of different transmission pathways, such as direct contact with infected cervids or indirect contact with contaminated equipment. [and] research has shown that some pathways and events are riskier than others, along with certain management practices and geographic locations.

This offline tool provides a confidential ranked estimate of which pathways carry the highest risk of CWD entry into a specific farm. In other words, it tells us how our “biosecurity defenses” can make the biggest difference.

Now, let’s explore the assessment tool, which you can download by following the link in the description.

Part A contains instructions for how to complete the assessment, followed by a series of questions about your farm.

Part B is divided into 5 sections- one for each transmission pathway.

The preliminary question will affect your overall score later in the assessment. Contact your state agency for the most up-to-date CWD surveillance information.

Questions and answers are arranged in a table, with the maximum number of points for each answer shown in the middle column. Find the answer that corresponds to your farm and record the number of points under “Farm Score” to the right.

At the end of each section, add up your total score before continuing.

Some questions will give a different number of points depending on your farm’s information.

First, choose your answer, then find the distance factor from the beginning of Part B that corresponds to your farm in the center columns. Move down to the row that matches your answer, and record the number of points to the right.

At the end of Part B, copy your score from each section, then add them up to get the grand total. This number, out of 100, will reflect your farm’s estimated risk level for CWD entry overall, with a higher score corresponding to a higher level of risk.

Part C provides a blank space for you to begin planning biosecurity updates to your farm based on your results.

The sections with your highest “farm risk score” represent pathways with a higher risk of entry for CWD into your operation. 

As an additional resource, the final page offers a list of biosecurity recommendations that can be customized to your farm.

If you’d like to repeat the assessment later to see how your score has changed, consider waiting until your state’s CWD information has been updated from the previous hunting season.

For more information about Chronic Wasting Disease, please visit the links in the description.