ABSTRACT
Parasites and diseases have always been minor factors in controlling deer density, primarily kicking in when deer density is too high and deer are crowded into conditions where spread of disease is high and deer resistance is low. The current exception is chronic wasting disease, which is less related to deer density than to spread from infected captive deer, such as in game farms and facilities designed to produce live deer for sale or to wild deer through escapes of penned deer or deer-deer contact through fences. Parasites and diseases are not factors in a manager's tool kits to manage deer density: density must be at levels destructive to other forest resources before they control deer density.
