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A new fund for ranchers near Yellowstone will help cover costs of brucellosis quarantine

Cattle in the snow.
Phil Roeder
/
Flickr
Cattle in the snow.

A new fund will help offset potential quarantine costs for ranchers in Park County who live near Yellowstone National Park.

The East Yellowstone Brucellosis Compensation Fund launched the first of January and has already seen two interested applicants.

Laura Bell is the East Yellowstone regional director at Legacy Works Group, and the facilitator of the East Yellowstone Collaborative. The collaborative is a group of nonprofits that helped get the fund off the ground.

Bell said ranchers making a living off the land also provide wildlife habitat, particularly for elk and other migrating ungulates in the area.

“ We reached out to landowners to visit with them about their operations, kind of what keeps them up at night, what are the obstacles that they face?” she said. “Time and time again, we heard that brucellosis, a positive brucellosis test and a quarantine, was right up there at the top.”

Brucellosis is a reproductive disease that can cause cattle to abort their young. Often they get it from elk that winter in the area east of the park between Cody and Yellowstone.

According to Wyoming’s state veterinarian, there are currently two active brucellosis quarantines in Park County.

The state recently doubled the amount ranchers can receive through its mitigation reimbursement program to $50,000 per quarantine.

The Property and Environment Research Center, a nonprofit that helped set up the fund, said that while the new fund in combination with the state money will help, it won’t necessarily cover all of the costs associated with most quarantine events.

Daniel Dalton, foreman at the Hoodoo Ranch, said larger ranches like his can spread cattle out to different pastures, which can lower feed costs if those cows don’t have to eat hay during quarantine. But he says he knows smaller ranchers nearby who don’t have that option. They take a big financial hit every time they need to quarantine.

“ I know he's already crossed over the $100,000 mark alone in what's going on in the last year with what he's had to do of extra incurred cost,” Dalton said, referencing someone he knew who went through quarantine. 

Dalton said he hopes this fund will help ranchers of all sizes get through some of the unanticipated costs that may come with a quarantine. He says for now, he’s trying to mitigate risk by making sure that cattle and elk calving on his ranch happens in different areas.

Olivia Weitz is based at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody. She covers Yellowstone National Park, wildlife, and arts and culture throughout the region. Olivia’s work has aired on NPR and member stations across the Mountain West. She is a graduate of the University of Puget Sound and the Transom story workshop. In her spare time, she enjoys skiing, cooking, and going to festivals that celebrate folk art and music.

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