Space and resource use by American crow Corvus brachyrhynchos in an area endemic for chronic wasting disease

American crow Corvus brachyrhynchos is a common species throughout North America. Crows play a role in the ecology of multiple diseases and a single laboratory experiment has shown the potential for crows to pass infectious prions, such as those associated with chronic wasting disease (CWD), in their feces after being force‐fed with infected material. Transmitting infectious prions has not yet been documented in a wild setting; however, research on space use and resource selection of crows may provide a better understanding of their potential role in the movement of infectious prions. In central Pennsylvania, USA, we captured 15 American crows and outfitted them with global positioning system (GPS) transmitters to record locations at 10‐min intervals. We used GPS data to calculate sizes of home ranges using several estimators of home range. To document use of the landscape by crows, we used integrated step selection function with covariates representing habitat type, potential sources of prion‐infected material (e.g. dump bin for harvested deer), and landscape features. We found a high level of variability among individual crows' 95% home range estimates, which ranged from 0.572 to 367.741 km 2 . There was also a diversity of covariates included in the model of best fit for individual crows, suggesting that crows differed individually in their space use and resource use. We documented individual crows interacting with locations where CWD prions may be present, including captive cervid facilities and carcass disposal bins, as well as some individuals crossing back and forth across CWD disease management area boundaries, highlighting their potential role in disease movement.