Feedgrounds Threaten Wyoming's Elk Herds

by Meredith Taylor

With recent national attention focused on disease transmission from game-farm animals to free-ranging wildlife in midwestern and Rocky Mountain states, Wyoming is like an island in a sea of infected wildlife. Wyoming has resisted the lure of domesticating wildlife on game farms, but has become entrapped in a wildlife feedground regime that, ironically, poses an equally onerous threat to our abundant wildlife herds.

It was inevitable that diseases like brucellosis, tuberculosis and chronic wasting disease carried by game-farm elk and deer in surrounding states like Colorado would cross the border and infect Wyoming's wildlife. Wildlife managers now realize that free-ranging wildlife have a much lower infection rate of these density-dependent diseases than do feedground animals concentrated nose to nose like domesticated livestock on feed lines.

A Recipe for Disaster

Unfortunately, despite its progressive position against game farms, Wyoming has established a wildlife feedground complex of 22 sites, the largest in the world, in an effort to supplement native range lost to ranches and development. Feedgrounds interrupt the natural migration flow of elk by short-stopping them on their way to winter range.

Now considered a "recipe for disaster" by biologists, feedgrounds promote higher disease rates, lower reproductive rates and have a greater impact on habitat than do free-ranging wildlife. Defining the solution to this problem is easy, but it will be difficult to accomplish.

Restoring Wild Patterns

WOC, the Wyoming Wildlife Federation and other conservationists are addressing the wildlife disease and habitat problems of feedgrounds in the Restoring Wild Patterns (RWP) program. RWP advocates habitat improvements and a pilot project to phase out three unnecessary state-run feedgrounds in the Gros Ventre Valley.

A slow but definite phase-out of feedgrounds would encourage elk to better disperse onto available habitat along the Gros Ventre River, Bacon Creek, Fish Creek and adjacent slopes instead of concentrating on feed lines.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Forest Service is now planning to put 1,500 head of cattle on the Fish Creek and Bacon Creek grazing allotments, in direct competition with elk and bison winter-range opportunities. Short-sighted decisions like this one will only increase conflicts between wildlife and livestock and reduce chances to provide adequate winter range for elk.

More Calves, Less Disease

Not only is there less disease transmission among free-ranging elk, but calf survival is substantially higher than in feedground-dependent animals. The ratio of elk calves per 100 cows is a good indicator of herd productivity. Calf/cow ratio data from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department's (WGFD's) 1998 and 2000 annual reports demonstrate that calf/cow ratios on feedgrounds in the Gros Ventre and National Elk Refuge are lower (18-18.8%) than free-ranging elk in the Gros Ventre (40-44%) and in the Buffalo Valley north of Jackson (50%).

It appears that diseases like brucellosis, as well as other factors associated with feedgrounds such as decreased nutrition, density-induced stress and impacted forage, may significantly reduce elk reproduction rates. For example, during the past two winters, all of the elk harvested during the late-hunt season in the Buffalo Valley tested negative for brucellosis. Disease incidence is significantly reduced to negligible levels or zero among elk using native winter range compared to their feedground cohorts, where brucellosis has infected up to 54% of elk on the Alpine feedground, despite years of vaccination.

Habitat Improvements Key to Success

The number of elk on native winter range near Jackson has increased over the past 11 years from a low of about 2,500 to a high of nearly 4,850. Of the 3,805-head Jackson elk herd counted by WGFD in 1999-2000, nearly 35% of the animals wintered on native range. Nearly seven times the number of elk wintered in the Spread Creek area in 2000 than in 1990, before vegetation-management improvements were made there.

These significant increases in elk on winter range are primarily the result of habitat-enhancement projects that disperse elk into areas where forage is more plentiful and of higher quality. Wolves also contribute to elk dispersal by scattering animals over wider areas of native habitat. In addition, the National Elk Refuge (NER) has successfully improved some of its habitat to minimize the need for supplemental feeding.

Such projects demonstrate how well RWP can work when elk are provided with abundant, high-quality forage on native habitat. With such progress, the NER and WGFD can continue to offer popular wildlife-viewing and hunting opportunities to the public on the refuge and throughout Jackson Hole, where wildlife naturally gather in winter, and, eventually, phase out supplemental feeding except in emergency conditions.

The RWP plan offers a win/win solution that conservationists have proposed to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in a conservation alternative for the current NER Elk & Bison Management Plan Environmental Impact Statement. We hope to see the conservation alternative implemented as a vision for the future of wildlife management in Wyoming.