LANDER - Elk feedgrounds should not be closed en masse anytime soon, according to the Wyoming Brucellosis Coordination Task Force.

But members support giving the Game and Fish Department the option of closing or merging feedgrounds as circumstances warrant.

Brucellosis can cause cattle to abort and can cause undulant fever in humans. Wyoming has had five brucellosis outbreaks in cattle in the past year, causing the state to lose its brucellosis-free status. Elk and bison in the greater Yellowstone area are infected with brucellosis and alleged to be the source of livestock infections.

The 19-member task force, formed by Gov. Dave Freudenthal to develop recommendations for solving the state's brucellosis problem, met Wednesday and Thursday in Lander, working toward completion of a report and recommendations that can be submitted to Freudenthal next month.

A key development last month, said Department of Agriculture Director John Etchepare, was a task force vote to not close down the single federal and 22 state elk feedgrounds in Wyoming. The task force vote was narrowly split, with a slight majority voting to keep the feedgrounds open. That left the minority to work on a minority report, explaining why they think all the feedgrounds should be closed.

On Wednesday, Etchepare suggested a third option: Allow Game and Fish to make significant changes to feedground operations, including closure or merger with nearby feedgrounds.

"There was a lot of vigorous debate, but everyone supported that concept," Etchepare said Thursday. This third path avoids the either/or extremes, he said, and emphasizes flexibility.

The issue is controversial in part because closure of elk feedgrounds could lead to a significant decrease in elk numbers - and therefore hunting opportunities - in northwest Wyoming.

The task force spent much of Thursday revising and refining language for best management practices for livestock producers and wildlife managers alike, as well as a road map of what to do if another outbreak occurs, and recommended policies for the state's agriculture and public health departments.

Different views

Game and Fish Department Director Terry Cleveland expressed frustration about the lack of cooperation and communication among federal agencies involved in the brucellosis issue.

"Within the state agencies, we generally do better because you can get your hands around someone's throat," Cleveland said. That's much harder to do when trying to work with the federal government, he said.

Game and Fish staff members are putting the finishing touches on a brucellosis management plan, focused on the three elk feedgrounds in the Pinedale area. That still leaves half a dozen more plans that need to be developed to cover the remaining feedgrounds.

The task force debated whether the remaining management plans should be finished in three or two years. Realizing that increased speed means more money for the brucellosis budget, the task force ultimately compromised and agreed upon a goal of two years, from the moment money is in hand.

Meredith Taylor, a representative of the Wyoming Outdoor Council, warned the task force that feedgrounds are breeding grounds for the brucellosis bacterium. Quoting U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientist Tom Roffe, Taylor called the feedgrounds "Petrie dishes of disease."

"Habitat improvements and dispersal of the herds is the best solution," she said, citing studies that indicate negligible contamination of livestock from free-ranging wildlife and ever-greater evidence of contamination when feedground wildlife commingle with livestock.

Wyoming and Gov. Freudenthal have a wonderful window of opportunity, Taylor said, thanks to a windfall of energy taxes and royalties. If habitat can be expanded and migration routes secured, she suggested, then feedgrounds and treatment of wildlife like livestock won't be valid options anymore.

Time is running out to resolve the brucellosis problem, because a bigger crisis is looming over the state, Taylor said. She asked: What happens if chronic wasting disease gets loose in the feedgrounds?

Rob Hendry, former president of the Wyoming Stockgrowers Association, said he's afraid the brucellosis task force may become too bureaucratized, that not enough action on the ground is going to happen. What he'd like to see is real implementation on the ground, before all the management plans are completed.

He cautioned that he doesn't want to see wildlife killed, but he does want diseased wildlife moved away, or at least kept away, from neighboring livestock.

"Some people say that can't happen, but I think it can," he said.

Etchepare said Wyoming has to convince livestock producers in neighboring states that enough is being done about brucellosis that neighbors can have a high degree of comfort about buying Wyoming cattle.

"It is very subjective," Etchepare said. If neighboring livestock producers start feeling more comfortable about Wyoming cattle, he said, so will the federal government, and that's when Wyoming will get a brucellosis-free designation.

Primary recommendations in a draft report by the Wyoming Brucellosis Coordination Task Force can be boiled down to the following points:

* Creation of a brucellosis management plan for the state within two years, upon receipt of funding from the state Legislature

* Livestock producers near wildlife feedgrounds need to develop their individualized brucellosis management plans.

* The National Elk Refuge and the National Park Services must develop their own brucellosis management plans.

* Livestock producers plus state and federal agencies must cooperate to control the spread of brucellosis, if they hope to eradicate it in the wild.