WYOMING — The Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) continues to monitor the spread of chronic wasting disease in Deer Hunt Area 154, a region between the Green River and the Hoback River, to better understand how the disease impacts Wyoming’s deer and elk populations.
The Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) first confirmed the presence of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in Wyoming’s Deer Hunt Area 154 near Bondurant in Sept. 2023, from a hunter-harvested buck mule deer. A second CWD-positive buck mule deer was confirmed in the hunt area in Nov. 2023.
According to WGFD, the second positive mule deer case emphasized the continued progression of CWD westward across the state. The CWD map on the Game and Fish website shows that Area 154 is bordered by three other hunt areas that had previous CWD detections.
WGFD evidence suggests that CWD is transmitted via saliva, urine, feces and infected carcasses. Animals can also be infected through the environment via contamination of feed or habitat with prions, or pathogenic agents, which can persist for 10 or more years.
The WGFD does not support the supplemental feeding of deer due to the spread of CWD in congregated big game herds.
“Artificial feeding can disrupt a deer’s natural instinct to seasonally move across the landscape to take advantage of the highest quality forage available,” WGFD said via press release.
Elk have been supplementally fed in western Wyoming for over a century, and while an elk’s stomach can more easily adapt to being fed hay, there are issues that come with congregating these animals, such as increasing the spread of the disease.
According to WGFD, there are benefits associated with feeding elk, such as keeping brucellosis-infected elk away from cattle, limiting damage to landowners’ hay crops, keeping elk from competing with struggling mule deer herds and maintaining robust elk numbers. Thus, the practice of feeding elk has become entrenched in western Wyoming’s wildlife management.
The WGFD has spent the past three years developing a long-term elk feedgrounds management plan in the face of the growing CWD issue. The plan will be discussed at the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission March 2024 meeting in Pinedale.
Visit the Game and Fish website to learn more about elk feedground challenges, the presence of CWD in Wyoming’s wildlife and how to dispose of a carcass properly.
CWD is 100% fatal to deer, elk and moose that have been infected.
