LANDER - The Wyoming Game and Fish Department was taken to task by the state veterinarian and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Thursday for knowing about the commingling of brucellosis-infected elk and cattle but not alerting the Wyoming Livestock Board to the situation.

The confrontation took place here during the biannual meeting of the Governor's Brucellosis Task Force. It grew out of discussions about a Wyoming Livestock Board decision to test a Gros Ventre cattle herd for brucellosis.

State Veterinarian Dwayne Oldham and Bret Combs, a veterinarian for the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, maintained that because Game and Fish is responsible for wildlife, the department has the duty to report instances of brucellosis-infected elk mingling with cattle.

"There is a law against exposing animals to an infectious disease, and you must report it," Oldham said.

Game and Fish Director Terry Cleveland rejected that argument, saying the department could not risk alienating the agricultural community by doing so.

"Fifty percent of wildlife habitat is in private hands. We can't do anything unless we have a good relationship," Cleveland said.

Oldham and Combs' position is that Wyoming must do all it can to combat the disease in order to regain its brucellosis-free status. Wyoming lost that status in November 2003 after a cattle herd next to the Game and Fish Department's Muddy Creek elk feedground near Pinedale was discovered to be infected with the disease.

Thursday's task force meeting repeatedly touched on the situation facing rancher Glenn Taylor, whose cattle mingled with elk this winter and have therefore been threatened with quarantine, before being tested for brucellosis later this month.

Brucellosis is a bacterial-based disease that can cause abortions in cattle, elk and bison. Most cattle in Wyoming are vaccinated against the disease. Cattlemen in western Wyoming feed cattle on their private land in the winter, and say much effort is made to keep elk and cattle from commingling, yet it occurs on many ranches in the region.

Oldham said Taylor's herd hasn't formally been quarantined, but it isn't going anywhere until it can be tested later this month. Test results should be known within a week, he said, and if results are negative, Taylor should be able to turn his cattle out on his grazing allotment quickly. If test results are positive, however, there'd be further tests to eliminate the possibility of false positives and ultimately, the Taylor herd would need to be destroyed, as happened a few years ago with Doc Jensen's herd.

Teton County rancher Brad Mead, a member of the task force, said "the Taylor ranch is like the canary in the coal mine. Watching what happens to them will be instructive."

What happened?

According to Oldham and Mead, the facts of the matter are:

* Elk from Bridger-Teton National Forest crossed the frozen surface of Slide Lake in mid-January to get to the Taylor Ranch.

* Efforts by Taylor and Game and Fish to run the elk off failed because they kept coming back.

* Because the elk herd was infected and was known to be present on the Taylor Ranch at least 24 hours, that triggered the concern of the Livestock Board.

* Oldham obtained photographic evidence from an unidentified party that elk and cattle had commingled. Commingling is viewed as a way to transmit the disease, usually from an aborted elk fetus which is "hot" with brucellosis bacteria.

* The Green River Cattlemen's Association and the Jackson Hole Cattle and Horse Association have passed resolutions calling for the Wyoming Livestock Board to halt the practice of quarantining cattle when commingling with elk occurs and there is no evidence of brucellosis in a cattle herd.

Mead worried aloud that if mere commingling can trigger a quarantine and testing, then a lot of ranchers in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem could be in trouble. He said what's happening to the Taylors "may be inevitable, and a preview of what will happen to others."

The disease is difficult enough, he said, made worse by a growing rift between people who need to work together.

"This shouldn't become a wildlife versus livestock issue. This is a pretty tense situation," Mead said.

Cleveland said Game and Fish doesn't want to end up serving as an enforcement arm of the Livestock Board. He said Oldham and the board should "pursue legal remedies" if they feel that strongly about it.

"Our desire is to work with you and the producers to solve this thing, but we all have our own pushes and shoves, our constituencies," Cleveland said. "Somehow, we need to make it work."

Oldham insisted Game and Fish has a duty to report instances of commingling.

"Our frustration is that this is a wildlife disease, and it is our job to keep it out of livestock," he said. "We need cooperation or a much bigger staff."

Joel Bousman, a Boulder-area rancher, worried that if quarantines are imposed in the spring, ranchers can't turn their cattle out onto grazing allotments until a quarantine is resolved. Buying hay all summer for a quarantined herd would break most ranching operations, he said.

Oldham said herds wouldn't be quarantined that long, that every effort would be made to test quickly and turn clean herds loose as soon as possible.

Bousman warned that ranchers could become reluctant to tell the Livestock Board about commingling if it means quarantines.

Combs and Oldham said that while quarantines are a necessary tool, they aren't automatic. The decision to quarantine and test depends on a variety of risk assessment factors - the rate of infection in the elk herd and what steps the rancher had taken to minimize commingling, as documented in a voluntary herd plan.

"Commingling may not require a test," Combs said. "We just need to sit down at the kitchen table and review the plan. We're not saying we will test every cow every year."

Brodie Farquhar is a freelance writer based in Lander. He can be reached via e-mail at {M3brodiefarquhar@hotmail.com.