Conference Agenda

Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) poses a major threat to elk in the Greater Yellowstone Area. CWD, which is always fatal, spreads through both direct contact and persistent environmental contamination via prions. While most studies focus solely on direct transmission, this paper addresses a notable gap by considering both direct and environmental transmission pathways. In Yellowstone, supplemental feeding supports elk herds for hunting and tourism but also accelerates CWD spread. Policymakers must determine feeding and hunting levels that yield both economic benefits and favorable ecological outcomes—specifically, reducing CWD prevalence. This requires dynamic optimization over multiple state variables, including susceptible elk, infected elk, and environmental prion loads. Prior studies and textbooks typically consider single-state-variable problems, offering no guidance for solving nonlinear, multivariable systems. This paper develops a novel high-dimensional perturbation method to approximate optimal management responses in such settings—filling a methodological gap. Results show that environmental transmission accelerates disease spread, while reduced feeding and increased hunting activities can indirectly slow disease transmission and move the system optimally towards the steady state.