Elk feeder James Barnes led two stout, 1,800 pound draft horses on an elk feedground in Alpine, Wyoming.
“Her name is Robin and his name is Batman,” Barnes said. “So Robin and Batman – they make a pretty good team.”
Robin and Batman pull a sleigh every day through the winter, loaded down with hay to feed about 400 elk.
Barnes has contracted with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) to feed elk in Alpine on and off for the last 14 years – and one can tell. On a late March day, Barnes confidently hooked the horses up to the long, flat wooden sleigh.
“Woah,” he said to Robin and Batman. There’s the sound of stiff leather, clinking metal and crunching snow as Barnes hooked them up.
In his leather chaps, Barnes climbed onto the sleigh and they’re off.
“Hanging on?” Barnes chuckled. The horses tugged the sleigh through the crunchy, icy snow – the initial pull is enough to throw a person off the sleigh.
“Gotta jerk it out of the ice,” he said.
With him was WGFD Pinedale area feedgrounds manager Gary Hornberger. He wore leather gloves and a green game and fish jacket – ready to work. At a pitstop in the hay yard, Hornberger and Barnes stacked hay bales onto the sleigh
“Gary, if you’ll put seven total on top of those two, that’ll be 35,” Barnes said.
With all the hay stacked, they take off into the snowy feedground to feed the elk – who watched intently in the distance.
This is all part of Wyoming’s winter feeding program for elk – it’s the only state in the country that has an official management plan like this, according to the WGFD. Other states like Utah feed elk as well. has Every winter at 22 state-run feedgrounds in western Wyoming, elk descend down from the mountains looking for more forage, and possibly hay. And if there’s enough snow and cold weather, the elk get fed through the winter.
It all started about 100 years ago. After some brutal winters, Wyoming started feeding elk to help them survive and to keep them off ranches. All these years later, elk have come to depend on it.
But now, Wyoming says it can’t go on the way it always has, because of a deadly disease that can spread when elk congregate.
Stakeholders have spent years with the WGFD crafting a first of its kind plan of what the future of feedgrounds will look like. The end goal isn’t to close them but to reduce elk’s reliance on being fed hay. But the specifics of how it’ll all be done are still unclear – it’s tricky and a highly emotional subject. Plus, there’s no precedent – no other state has had to do this.
At a recent Game and Fish Commission meeting in Pinedale that plan was finalized, but not before some lengthy discussion.
“So this quote is from a report 20 years ago on feedgrounds,” said Cheyenne Stewart, WGFD wildlife management coordinator for Jackson, to the commissioners. “What started as a logical solution to some very real problems has become one of the most complex and controversial wildlife management challenges of the 21st century.”
Aside from the WGFD employees, the room was crowded – filled with cowboy and hiking boots, Carhartt vests and tension.
“If we remember that we're all in this room for the same reason, to make sure that our future generations have the same healthy, thriving [elk] populations as we do, then I think it makes it easier for us to sit around the table and talk through those obstacles and figure out ways to get around them,” Stewart said to the room.
The main issue at hand is Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). It’s a fatal neurological disease that spreads when elk congregate, making feedgrounds a concern.
“CWD is marching its way towards the feedground system,” Stewart said.
She said this as she showed a map of Wyoming where CWD first appeared in 1986 in the southeastern part of the state – on the map it was marked as a small pink blob. But, as she scrolled through the years, the pink blob grew, eventually enveloping the majority of the state. To date, there have been four cases of CWD in feedground herd units. One projection shows if it takes hold, CWD could possibly wipe out half the population of feedground elk in western Wyoming.
So that’s why the game and fish are itching to get ahead of the disease, creating the 100-page plan to reduce elk’s reliance on feedgrounds. But it comes with a lengthy list of caveats – like, it can’t affect things like hunting, elk population objectives, and ranchers’ bottom line. And even still, it’s pretty controversial.
“I got bogged down, quit reading it, got frustrated,” Dustin Child, a longtime outfitter from Cokeville, who spoke to commissioners at the meeting. “And I powered through and got to page 50. And that's when I really started to hit the meat and potatoes of what is in this. And I had some serious concern.”
Child is concerned that this plan is giving the agency authority to manage less elk on the landscape, which he worries will hurt hunting.
“Elk is what we have. Let's not mess that up. Let's proceed with caution,” he said.
But, commissioners say they are being cautious and will only make changes the public supports. They passed the plan unanimously.
So with this overarching plan, it basically sets the stage to make more plans. For the next few years, the agency will outline specific ideas and goals for each feedground herd – this will be called Feedground Management Action Plans.
Back at the Pinedale Game and Fish office, wildlife supervisor John Lund is working hard on this.
“Every little change is going to impact somebody. And that's what makes it difficult,” he said. “And if it was something that was simple, it would have been done a long time ago”
Lund has been involved in the years-long process of creating this plan.
“It's been a long few years,” Lund said. “We knew from day one that when we first sat down at a table to talk about this, that it was going to stir the pot, that there would be significant pushback from all sides. We knew it would be highly emotional.”
That’s because many ranchers don’t want to see elk on their property, commingling with their cows. Some hunters fear that because elk depend on feedgrounds, reducing reliance on hay could cause die-off in the herds. And many wildlife advocates are alarmed by CWD, and fundamentally don’t agree with humans interfering with wildlife – they’d like to see feedgrounds cease altogether.
“We've been doing this for decades now and to flip the switch and just stop is completely inappropriate,” Lund said. “It's not an option.”
This is uncharted territory. So Lund said it could take decades to make any significant changes. In fact, in the short-term, the average person might not even notice.
“Maybe it's expanding a feedground – making it larger so elk can disperse better,” he said. “It might be obtaining equipment to help spread elk out, things like that.”
He reiterated this is not a feedground closure plan – a fear that has continuously been brought up by some in public meetings.
“Down the road, if we've been successful at finding ways where elk don't need to be on a feedground without causing all kinds of damage to private land, without winter mortality, without all those issues, someday there may not be a need for some given feedground,” Lund said. “That would be perfectly acceptable.”
That’s a lot of moving pieces to balance. Lund described it as a ‘puzzle.’ Seemingly, it’s hard to imagine how anything can be accomplished. But, Lund said he’s hopeful and that out of the box solutions might become more clear as the years go on.
Lund said what’s important to remember is the whole reason any of this is happening is to benefit the elk, which are a prized possession in western Wyoming.
Back in Alpine, elk feeder James Barnes wrapped up feeding the 400 or so elk. For him, the feedgrounds are important.
“I make a living off of the elk herd in Wyoming,” Barnes said as he drove the team of horses through the snow. “So it's, it's really crucial to me.”
Currently, elk feeding is done for the season and they’re migrating to their summer range in the mountains, until they return next winter, looking for hay. In the meantime, it’ll be up to the people to figure out the specifics of what winter feeding will look like in the future.
Editor's Note: This article has been updated to include a link to WGFD saying they are the only state with a "formal" feeding program as well as acknowledging other states do feed elk as well.
