CWD death toll on elk feedgrounds climbs

JACKSON — More elk have died of chronic wasting disease on feedgrounds since cases were first announced earlier this year.

The highly transmissible, always fatal neurological illness has now been detected in five elk carcasses, plus a carcass presumed positive that could not be tested, on Dell Creek Feedground and two carcasses o n Scab Creek Feedground.

Black Butte and Horse Creek have each had one positive case.

This past feeding season, which has now come to a close, marked the first season when the disease was found on feedgrounds.

“We know it’s been coming all along,” Brandon Scurlock, wildlife management coordinator for Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s Pinedale region, said at a state Game and Fish Commission meeting Tuesday. “It went from zero to 60.”

Over the course of the feeding season, Game and Fish officials “took out” several seemingly symptomatic elk on feedgrounds, such as a “super emaciated” elk on Scab Creek Feedground, but none of them turned out to be positive, Scurlock said.

The department will continue feeding elk, due to strong support from outfitters and stock growers. Over the next few years, Scab Creek and Dell Creek will be case studies in how the disease spreads on feedgrounds.

“That’s our test tube,” said Bill Ames, a Pinedale sportsman who previously served on the department’s CWD working group. “Hopefully next year will really tell us a story of what’s going to happen with CWD.”

Scientists have studied chronic wasting disease in captive elk populations and wild populations that are not fed, like the Laramie Peak Herd, but no one knows exactly how transmissible it is on feedgrounds.

The disease’s progress on Dell Creek and Scab Creek will show the department “how insidious the disease is,” Scurlock said.

“To put a more morbid spin on things,” he added.

That data can be used to make proactive decisions on other feedgrounds, Scurlock said. Closing feedgrounds, however, is no longer within the Game and Fish Commission’s purview.

In 2021, the Wyoming Legislature passed a bill stripping the commission of its authority to close feedgrounds. Any proposal to close a feedground would have to be reviewed by the Wyoming Livestock Board before being approved by the governor.

The Fall Creek and Pinedale herds, both of which have seen CWD-positive cases on feedgrounds this winter and are above population objectives, will see increased harvest in the upcoming season. Disease transmission broadly was cited as a reason for increasing harvest, but not CWD in particular.

Ames urged the commission to increase harvest to shrink the herds, because models suggest this would lead to more elk in future years by curbing the spread of CWD.

“If CWD turns out to be nothing, we can build the herd back,” he said.

The commission voted to approve the regulations as drafted.

“If Dell Creek turns out to be a disaster, I think it’s safe to say that the other feedgrounds will follow,” Ames said.

This story was published on April 24, 2025.