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label: Brucellosis control

PINEDALE - The end of an era is in sight for Wyoming's elk and the people who live with them, the manager of the National Elk Refuge in Jackson feels, but it will take leadership from the governor and not a notoriously sluggish interagency committee to make that change happen.

Speaking at a forum on feedgrounds Wednesday, refuge manager Barry Reiswig called on the governor's task force on brucellosis to "step out and make the decisions that need to be made" to control the disease in Wyoming.

"Those are not going to be easy … But down the road, I think people will thank you," said Reiswig, who later said he was not specifically calling for an end to feedgrounds in his remarks but hopes ideas such as paying property owners to let elk winter over on their land are considered.

The forum was held two hours after the Greater Yellowstone Interagency Brucellosis Commission - representing state, federal and other interests - wrapped up its meeting here, a session that focused primarily on discussions of adjusting legal language in the group's guiding principles and updates on important, but nuanced, scientific studies.

Can the state group turn talk into action in a way the GYIBC has not in the past 10 years?

"God, yes," Reiswig said. "Unfortunately, it's been mostly rhetoric, posturing. It's been very disappointing."

Reiswig specifically called for an end to using vaccines that don't work, and more cooperation from people on different sides of the debate.

The forum focused on how feedgrounds are used to help elk through the winter, and what alternatives to feedgrounds might help keep elk through the winter without forcing them onto private lands.

The future of state run feedgrounds in western Wyoming came to the fore of the brucellosis debate after the discovery in November that a cattle herd adjacent to a feedground was infected with the disease. That discovery cost Wyoming its brucellosis-free status, forcing ranchers to undertake laborious and expensive testing of cattle before they're sold.

Brucellosis is a disease that can cause cows to abort their first calf. It is primarily a livestock disease, but elk and bison in the greater Yellowstone area harbor the last large reservoir of the bacteria in the nation.

In response to that recent outbreak, Gov. Dave Freudenthal appointed a 19-member task force, with a scientific support team, to chart a course to a long-term solution to the brucellosis problem. He gave them one year to do it.

Frank Galey, dean of the University of Wyoming College of Agriculture, said the group does not aspire to solve the problem, but hopes to make recommendations on what to do to solve the problem.

"Our job is to consider various bold proposals and give (options) to the governor to consider," Galey said. He said he took Reiswig's words as a call to question feedgrounds, something already on the table at the governor's request.

The brucellosis debate, which often seems to pit livestock against wildlife, has come to focus on feedgrounds - where wildlife is treated more like livestock.

Hunters and ranchers like feedgrounds because they keep elk populations high by preventing mass starvation; they keep elk from eating forage or feed set out for cattle, or that other wild game might use. They also help prevent elk from commingling with cattle.

Others are critical of feedgrounds as a wildlife management tool because they cause elk to cluster in unnaturally

crowded herds, allowing brucellosis or any other disease to spread much more rapidly than in a more natural setting.

One way to move elk off feedgrounds without pushing them onto private lands is to improve native habitat for elk.

Another is to increase the number of elk killed by hunters in order to reduce the elk population.

Elk on feedgrounds are far more likely to be infected with brucellosis than elk in the wild, according to Brendan

Scurlock, brucellosis biologist for the Game and Fish Department in Pinedale. Some people feel that ending feeding would go a long way toward solving the brucellosis problem. But others warn of moving too quickly.

Because feedgrounds allow elk to thrive, their numbers have increased to the point that simply calling a halt to

feeding could unleash a flood of elk onto private grazing lands in the winter.

"Any abrupt change to feedgrounds could have severe consequences for ranchers due to elk moving onto cattle

feedlines," warned Wyoming State Veterinarian Jim Logan in a written introduction to the forum.

As many as 16,000 elk are fed on feedgrounds in western Wyoming while as many as 4,000 elk winter entirely on

native ranges, feedground manager Scott Werbelow said. It costs about $1.3 million to run the feeding program.

Jim Magagna, executive vice president of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, said he too is frustrated at the

pace of action driven by the GYIBC, though he would rather not see an "end to an era" if that means an end to feed

grounds.

Eliminating feedgrounds creates more problems than it solves, Magagna said.

Magagna said he would rather see elk fed on feedgrounds and efforts to eradicate brucellosis focus an intensive

vaccination program.

Trouble is, current vaccines are not very effective in elk.

Current research on vaccinated elk in western Wyoming has yielded puzzling results, according to biologist Scurlock, who is in charge of vaccinating elk on feedgrounds.

The most recent studies found that 59 percent of elk on the Grey's River feedground tested positive for exposure to the disease. At Dell Creek feedground, which is maintained as a control site where no vaccinating is done, only 8 percent of the elk tested positive for exposure, he said.

Scurlock said biologists can't explain those results and are trying to puzzle out the reason why. In the longer

range, elk on all vaccinated feedgrounds are slightly less likely to test positive than those on Dell Creek, over

time, he said.