An always-fatal disease that wildlife biologists expect will diminish northwest Wyoming’s elk population for decades has spread for the first time into the state-run feedgrounds in Jackson Hole.
State wildlife managers announced on Monday that they’d detected chronic wasting disease at the Horse Creek Feedground, which has fed and concentrated in close quarters an average of over 1,500 elk during recent winters.
The details of the latest infection are unclear: Officials at the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s Cheyenne headquarters told WyoFile that none of its staffers were available to discuss the matter.
Based on CWD’s progression in the last few months, the lethal prion disease’s spread onto the Horse Creek Feedground, located on state-owned ground, was expected: The incurable neurological disease is spreading rapidly this winter in the southern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
In December, wildlife managers announced that CWD had officially reached the Fall Creek Herd, which fans out into the Gros Ventre, Wyoming and Snake River mountain ranges in summers and spends winters at the Camp Creek, Dog Creek, Horse Creek and South Park feedgrounds.
In January, Game and Fish announced that CWD had been detected for the first time within the boundaries of an elk feedground — at Scab Creek, in the Green River basin. In quick succession, dead infected elk were then discovered in the Dell Creek, and Black Butte feedgrounds.
Infectious CWD prions were found in a dead elk at the Hoback River basin’s Dell Creek site for the first time in mid-February, where several more CWD-infected animals were subsequently discovered. That feedground appears to be in the early stages of a CWD “epidemic,” Wyoming State Wildlife Veterinarian Sam Allen told WyoFile at the time.
Then just last week, a dead adult cow tested positive at the Black Butte Feedground in the Upper Green River basin. That animal had previously wintered at the Dell Creek Feedground, according to Game and Fish officials.
Chronic wasting disease’s arrival at the Horse Creek Feedground brings a new malady to the mix in a place that’s already struggled with ungulate sickness. During the whopper winter of 2022-’23, 155 calves stricken with bacterial “hoof rot” died or had to be killed on the Horse Creek Feedground — potentially the largest hoof rot die-off documented in the nearly century-long history of Wyoming’s elk-feeding program.
The new detection means the deadly malady is treading nearer to northwest Wyoming’s largest concentration of wapiti. Less than 10 miles north — and linked by the Gros Ventre Wilderness — is the National Elk Refuge, which in recent winters has hosted between about 6,000 and 10,000-plus members of the Jackson Elk Herd.
Recent research out of the U.S. Geological Survey forecasts a dismal future for the Jackson Herd: If the U.S. Fish and Wildlife keeps feeding refuge elk, CWD is expected to reach 35% prevalence and herd size is expected to decline by roughly half.
There are equally dire scientific projections for northwest Wyoming’s other five fed elk herds. If routine winter elk feeding keeps on, CWD prevalence in the Afton, Fall Creek, Piney, Pinedale and Upper Green River elk herds is expected to reach 42%. Populations, in turn, are expected to crater, declining by nearly half from roughly 16,000 elk today to 8,300 animals within 20 years. Modeling predicts better outcomes, both in terms of population and disease prevalence, if feeding ceases.
Game and Fish-run planning processes are underway to evaluate the feeding regimes within the Pinedale and Jackson herds. Political headwinds, however, could stymie big changes. Traditionally pro-feeding parties like hunting outfitters and ranchers will need to buy into any alterations under the terms of Game and Fish’s feedground plan. Additionally, any closures would need to pass muster with the Wyoming Livestock Board and, ultimately, the governor.
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