elk feedgrounds

Chronic wasting disease has struck the Black Butte elk feedground, making it the third feedground in the past three months. The fatal disease threatens to topple western Wyoming’s roughly 20,000 fed elk.

Wyoming has hit another unfortunate milestone: A second elk feedground with chronic wasting disease. The detection has the potential to threaten the future of western Wyoming’s elk herds.

A chronic wasting disease case was confirmed in two elk on the Dell Creek Feedground, according to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. This is the second incident of CWD on a feedground in Wyoming ever.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) has detected the first positive case of Chronic Wasting Disease on an elk feedground in the state.

On May 8 at 6 a.m., the Soda Lake elk feedgrounds were cold, windy and empty, except for some Wyoming Game and Fish horses turned out on summer pasture.

Every winter at 22 state-run feedgrounds in western Wyoming, elk descend from the mountains looking for more forage, and possibly hay. It all started about a 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.

After a lengthy morning conversation on pronghorn at a Pinedale meeting, the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission shifted in the afternoon to another hot topic – elk feedgrounds.

Wyoming is figuring out how it’ll manage elk feedgrounds into the foreseeable future, and after years of input, a final draft plan has been released.

A milder start to winter means fewer elk on the National Elk Refuge in Jackson, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

For the first time, Wyoming is outlining specifically how it will manage elk feedgrounds going forward. A draft plan was released, and it is a shift from how the state’s historically done things.The Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) recently published its draft elk feedground management plan. It is about two and half years in the making – with 60 stakeholders taking part in the conversation.