LANDER - Elk feedgrounds would not be automatically closed if chronic wasting disease ever appears at one, according to a Wyoming Game and Fish Department interim plan released Monday.

The document immediately drew fire from at least one conservation group that favors phasing out the feedgrounds because of disease concerns.

The Game and Fish Department isn't scheduled to determine a final wasting disease plan until its Sept. 5 meeting. Meanwhile, the interim plan will guide department actions.

Historically, Game and Fish has defined the wasting disease zone as southeastern Wyoming. Yet the disease has moved northward: A mule deer and whitetail deer tested positive in the vicinity of Worland in 2003. Last year, a mule deer and whitetail deer tested positive in the vicinity of Kaycee.

Because the Worland and Kaycee cases suggest a northwestern expansion of the disease, Game and Fish officials are concerned the disease could eventually infect elk frequenting the state and federal elk feedgrounds in Lincoln, Sublette and Teton counties in northwest Wyoming.

The interim plan document notes that while wasting disease prevalence in wild elk is 2 to 3 percent of the population, the disease can exceed 50 percent prevalence in captive populations, such as game farms.

"We thought it prudent to take some thought, in advance, of what we'd do if CWD shows up," said Gregg Arthur, deputy director of internal operations for Game and Fish. Depending on circumstances at the time the disease is ever detected on a feedground, Arthur said the department wants to "leave our options open," but didn't say exactly what those options might be.

Chronic wasting disease is a transmissible neurological disease of deer and elk that produces small lesions in brains of infected animals. It is characterized by loss of body condition, behavioral abnormalities and death. The disease is classified as a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy and is similar to mad cow disease in cattle and scrapie in sheep.

Some conservation groups have said the practice of feeding elk during winter - which concentrates the animals unnaturally and allows disease to spread easily - sets the stage for catastrophe if wasting disease reaches elk there.

"This disease is looming on the horizon and is getting closer every day, yet this plan refuses to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation," said Meredith Taylor, a staff member of the Wyoming Outdoor Council.

She urged the state to follow the lead of neighboring Montana and Colorado, which are closing game farms n comparable operations to Wyoming's feedgrounds, she said.

Wasting disease has been repeatedly shown to be a density-dependent disease, ripping through game farms around the country, Taylor said.

Dave Gowdey, executive director of the Wyoming Wildlife Federation, said the group supports best available science, and that if the interim plan represents best available science, then the federation is happy to support Game and Fish.

"These wildlife diseases have us all scared," Gowdey said, "and CWD could make brucellosis look mild in comparison."

He said wildlife diseases are forcing a wide re-examination of wildlife management and that the issue of feedgrounds and disease "keeps popping up."

Gowdey said the federation does not believe that feedgrounds can be shut down overnight, but that they should be phased out over years and perhaps even decades.

On Friday, Gowdey said, the Wyoming Outdoor Council and the Dubois Wildlife Association will appear before the Game and Fish Commission in Casper to ask for consideration of closing three feedgrounds in the Gros Ventre as an experiment in controlling brucellosis.

The plan's provisions

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department's interim plan to deal with the threat of chronic wasting disease in feedground elk includes these provisions:

* Testing - Elk that die or are killed on any of the 22 state feedgrounds will be tested for the disease. During and outside of regular hunting seasons, deer and elk samples will be collected and tested for the disease by department personnel in Teton, Sublette and Lincoln counties.

* If discovered - Should a wasting disease case be identified in those three counties, hunter surveillance will be intensified. If hunter samples are unavailable, the department will attempt to kill and test 50 elk or deer within a five-mile radius of the case. If another positive test results, the department will attempt to kill and test 50 additional animals in a 10-mile radius of the original case. The plan calls for such collection and sampling until the periphery of the outbreak is determined.

Objectives

Planners hope this procedure will:

* Determine the magnitude, if any, of the prevalence.

* Possibly eliminate the only case of wasting disease in the area to prevent its spread.

* Possibly allow the department to locate an area of infection that it can manage aggressively.

In the feedgrounds

If wasting disease shows up in a feedground next winter, the interim plan does not directly call for shutting down that feedground. Instead, it calls for:

* Intensive monitoring and removal of any elk showing clinical signs of the disease.

* Maximizing the area of feeding to decrease animal-to-animal contact.

* Decreasing days of feeding to disperse the elk.

* Any other actions to decrease elk concentration, "provided such actions are consistent with other necessary wildlife management practices." Large-scale culling of elk is not anticipated.