# WYOMING ELK FEEDLOTS THE REAL PROBLEM



## Bob Kellam (Apr 8, 2004)

WYOMING ELK FEEDLOTS THE REAL PROBLEM
Debunking Brucellosis Myths

Montana just lost its brucellosis-free status, just as Idaho and Wyoming have in recent years, and stockgrowers and politicians blame the bison and elk herds living in Yellowstone National Park. But who's really at fault?

By Bill Schneider

Montana just lost its brucellosis-free status, just as Idaho and Wyoming have in recent years. Whenever this happens, stockgrowers and politicians rush to blame the bison and elk herds living in Yellowstone National Park and the government for not doing enough to eradicate the disease.

When they should be blaming themselves.

Ranchers, especially in Wyoming but not only in Wyoming, have done more than anybody, even the federal government, to keep the brucellosis threat alive. And you could even argue that they want to keep it alive.

When Wyoming lost its brucellosis-free status in 2004, it was proved scientifically that elk caused the infection--not wild, free-roaming elk, but elk fed hay on state-sanctioned feedgrounds. Ditto for Idaho when the Gem State lost its status in 2006 because of transfers from elk. (Both states have since regained their brucellosis-free status.)

In Montana, the livestock industry blamed elk for the first brucellosis transfer last year and imply it was elk again that caused the second incidence of the disease revealed last week. Even though it's technically possible to determine if elk caused an infection, these tests have not been done in Montana. At this point, counter to what we've been told, it's merely a theory that elk transferred the disease. It's more likely that it was a cattle-to-cattle transfer that caused it, but you aren't reading that in the newspapers. Not yet.

To be clear, I don't know what caused the outbreaks, but neither does the livestock industry or government agencies--or else they aren't telling us what they know. All we know is that elk were seen grazing the same fields as the infected cow. But is that science? So, let's stop assuming elk are to blame until we know the facts.

Here's why the Montana outbreaks are more likely to be a cattle-to-cattle transfers.

Wyoming is a permanent brucellosis hot zone because the livestock industry wants it that way. Ranchers, the most powerful lobby in the Cowboy State, have forced the state Game and Fish Department to operate 22 elk feedgrounds to keep the animals off winter range intended for cattle. The high concentration of elk on the feedlots causes the prevalence of brucellosis to run as high as 30 percent. In free-roaming elk in the Greater Yellowstone Area, (GYA) prevalence runs from zero up to about 2 percent. And even that 2 percent is likely elk infected by "hot elk" from the rancher-endorsed, government-managed elk feedlots.

Many people believe all elk herds have some prevalence of brucellosis, but the truth is, the disease is distinctly a GYA problem. Only elk in and around the park have a measurable prevalence of the disease. Brucellosis in elk herds remains a GYA phenomenon because of the Wyoming feedlots where high elk concentrations create ideal conditions for the disease. The real problem is that we allow elk to be fed in close proximity to cattle.

It is remotely possible but extremely unlikely that one of those "hot elk" from the Wyoming feedlots (or a free-roaming elk infected by it) made it up to the Paradise Valley in Montana and transferred brucellosis to a cow. And in this case, it was physically impossible for bison to have caused the transfer. So, if it wasn't a wildlife-related transfer, the infection had to come from other cattle, such as herds of Corriente cattle recently shipped into the area, rumored to be from Texas or Mexico, where brucellosis has been prevalent for many decades.

In reality, the brucellosis scare is not about controlling a disease. It's about controlling elk (bison, too, but that's another story for another time) and keeping them from eating grass meant for cows. You wouldn't have to be too deep into conspiracy theory to argue that the livestock industry wants the brucellosis boogieman out there to hammer state wildlife agencies with its political will and to keep elk and bison away from their grass.

And the economic impact of losing our brucellosis-free status is much overstated. Please refer to a NewWest.Net guest column written by Robert Hoskins called The True Cost of Brucellosis. Hoskins exposes the misconception that losing brucellosis-free status devastates a state's livestock industry. It might increase production costs as much as 1 percent, but that's the maximum.

So, it's another myth that brucellosis is anything close to the economic catastrophe ranchers make it out to be. The real catastrophe is stockgrowers, elk hunters and wildlife agencies allowing the elk feedlot folly to continue when everybody knows that the big brother of brucellosis, chronic wasting disease (CWD), is on the horizon. CWD has been documented 90 miles from the nearest Wyoming feedground and is guaranteed to reach the winter-fed herds soon. When (not if) it does, state agencies might have to wipe out entire elk herds in an attempt to keep the disease from spreading into Idaho and Montana. If agencies don't gun down the elk herds in designated "total kill zones" (actions called for in state CWD action plans), the disease will do it for them, infecting and killing 40 to 80 percent of the animals.

(If you want to know more about this dire threat I've called the CWD Time Bomb, click here.)

In conclusion, the entire brucellosis issue seems like a fraud. At the very least, it's dramatically misplaced priorities.

Wyoming keeps feeding the elk while stockgrowers keep feeding the fear of brucellosis to the public despite its minor economic impact. Ranchers insist on keeping the Wyoming elk feedlots open, even though this more or less guarantees brucellosis won't be eradicated, and therefore becomes their self-fulfilling prophecy--and, of course, brings ever closer the day when CWD reaches them and devastates our elk populations


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## Bob Kellam (Apr 8, 2004)

Soooooooo which side is correct ?
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Group: Trim elk, bison numbers

Tuesday, June 24, 2008 7:37 AM MDT

BILLINGS, Mont. -- A cattle producers' group on Monday called for federal agencies to reduce bison and elk numbers around Yellowstone National Park, as part of efforts to eradicate the livestock disease brucellosis.

A Yellowstone official rejected the proposal. And a spokeswoman for Wyoming Gov. David Freudenthal suggested it would invite federal meddling in an issue best addressed at the state level.

Brucellosis still lingers in Yellowstone's wildlife after being nearly eliminated elsewhere in the country over the past several decades.

The disease causes pregnant cows to abort their calves. It originally was introduced to Yellowstone through livestock brought in by early European settlers.

How to clean up tainted elk and bison populations has so far eluded state and federal officials -- raising complaints from ranchers who say they must pay the price for the failure to control the disease.

That was underscored by two recent infections in Wyoming's Sublette County and Pray, Mont., both of which are in the greater Yellowstone area.

Both ranches face the likelihood their herds will be slaughtered as a protective measure. And hundreds of cattle on neighboring ranches remain under quarantine while investigators look for the sources of the infections.

To guard against future transmissions, the California-based U.S. Cattlemen's Association said Monday that the federal government should reduce Yellowstone's elk and bison populations to keep the animals separated from domestic livestock.

"The federal government needs to look at what numbers of animals they could sustain there in the park without them leaving and mingling with livestock," said the group's president, Jon Wooster. "They need a plan to get those numbers in line with forage (in the park) and keep the disease from spreading any farther than it already has."

Yellowstone spokesman Al Nash dismissed Wooster's assertion that bison and elk overgraze inside the park. He said the animals' winter migrations to lower elevations, where they are more likely to meet with cattle, are part of their natural patterns.

"There is no population issue inside Yellowstone National Park. These animals do not leave the park because it is overgrazed," Nash said.

In Wyoming, Freudenthal spokeswoman Cara Eastwood said managing elk and bison is the responsibility of the state -- not the federal agencies mentioned by the cattlemen's association.

"This is an issue that is best managed locally by ranchers and officials on the ground, rather than from 2,000 miles away in Washington, D.C.," Eastwood said.

Yellowstone's bison already are aggressively managed. Hunting and a federal-state capture and slaughter program killed 1,600 of the animals last winter. About 2,100 of the animals remain.

But Dennis MacDonald, past president of the cattlemen's Montana branch, said the bison program has not reduced the threat from elk.

He said reducing elk numbers through expanded public hunting would give his industry room to operate -- until a brucellosis vaccine can be developed to eradicate the disease from wildlife.

"It's a much more difficult problem to solve," MacDonald said of brucellosis in elk. "I love to see the elk. They are one of the most magnificent animals in the world, but we need to get a handle on this disease."


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