CHEYENNE - Some Wyoming lawmakers want to know if there's a link between two of the Northern Rockies' most difficult wildlife management issues: wolves and brucellosis.

A bill making its way through the Wyoming Legislature would appropriate $45,000 for the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission to collect and test blood and tissue samples to determine the prevalence of the infectious disease in wolves.

"Our brucellosis problem is up there around (Yellowstone National Park), where the wolves are," said Sen. Kit Jennings, R-Casper and sponsor of Senate File 87. "If the wolves start getting a bigger and bigger roaming area, and they are carrying it, then they can affect our cattle industry and shut it all down."

The bill is headed for a hearing in the Wyoming House after clearing the Senate and two House committees.

Brucellosis - a bacterial infection that can cause pregnant cows to abort their calves - exists in Wyoming wildlife such as elk and bison. Wyoming's cattle industry has been classified as brucellosis-free since 2006, though the infection was detected last summer in a Sublette County cattle herd.

Jennings said the purpose of the study is to find out if wolves are carrying brucellosis. "If they're carrying it, then we'll be back next year to sit down and decide what we want to do," he said.

Wildlife biologists say wolves could potentially contract brucellosis by eating infected animals or their aborted fetuses. But so far, testing of the animals in Wyoming, Yellowstone National Park and Montana have come up negative, they said.

"It's not even an issue," said Mike Jimenez, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's wolf recovery project director for Wyoming. "No one's ever really been concerned about it, but for whatever reason if there is a concern, it's easy enough to test for it."

Last summer, federal wildlife officials started adding brucellosis testing on wolves that were collared or killed in the state, Jimenez said. He said the testing was a response to increased concern over brucellosis in Wyoming.

Results from 16 Wyoming wolves tested last summer were negative, he said. Results from testing another 20 wolves collared more recently were not yet available, he said.

The Wyoming proposal calls for the state Game and Fish Commission to acquire from the Fish and Wildlife Service blood samples from captured wolves and the carcasses of killed wolves. Jennings said he expects the state will be able to test from 50 to 60 wolves during the span of the project, which lasts from July through June 2010.

Terry Kreeger, supervisor of the veterinary services branch for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, said the department's research lab at Sybille has tested only sporadically for brucellosis since wolves were reintroduced to the state in 1994. They have all been negative, he said.

Kreeger said he doesn't believe wolves are a factor in Wyoming's brucellosis situation. He said studies have shown that wolves infected with brucellosis do not transmit the disease.

"Given what we know today, we would consider wolves a dead-end host for bacteria, i.e., they become infected but they are not capable of transmitting it to other animals, even other wolves," he said.

Jennings said a constituent first brought the idea of testing wolves for brucellosis to his attention. He said he found a study from South Korea proving that brucellosis was passed among dogs and from dogs to cattle in a dairy farm.