CARBONDALE, Ill. (WAND) — A research team at SIU Carbondale has been collecting camera data on white-tailed deer to study how they socialize with other deer.
By collecting this footage, researchers are able to create simulated models to hypothesize how Chronic Wasting disease is spread among a white-tailed deer population.
In 2023, researchers on the project camera-collared deer at SIU’s Touch of Nature Outdoor Education Center.
John Vinson, a postdoctoral associate at the Center for Wildlife Sustainability Research, is one of the leaders on the project and created the model.
"We let them [cameras] stay on the deer for a year and record, in 15 second snippets, what they were doing throughout their day," said Dr. Vinson.
It took a team of over 10 zoology students to analyze the nearly 70,000, 15-second videos, which totals roughly 300 hours of screen time.
"Interactions are what is being built from this camera data," Dr. Vinson explained. "So we can have them have different types of interactions at different times of the year. We can have those interactions be very risky for transmission of chronic wasting disease between individuals when they have those direct contacts."
In utilizing the simulations, Dr. Vinson and other researchers can study how infection spreads without the risk of harming any deer.
"It's to have a better understanding of what are those [infection] contacts, and are they having these risky contacts out in nature?" Dr. Vinson explained.
Copyright 2025. WAND TV. All rights reserved.
