Final answer:
d. chronic wasting disease
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is the prion disease found in deer and elk. It is part of a group of fatal neurodegenerative disorders caused by infectious proteins leading to brain tissue damage.
Step-by-step explanation:
The prion disease that is found in deer and elk is known as chronic wasting disease (CWD). Prion diseases are a group of rare, fatal neurodegenerative disorders that affect both humans and animals. In animals, different prion diseases include scrapie in sheep and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as mad cow disease, in cattle. Human prion diseases include Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) and kuru. Prions are infectious agents composed of protein that cause the misfolding of normal cellular proteins, particularly the prion protein (PrP), leading to brain damage and characteristic symptoms of the disease.