Two more cases of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) has been found in elk, one of them in a Cody Region elk hunt area.

The disease was discovered in Elk Hunt Area 62, just southwest of Meeteetse, Game and Fish officials reported last Tuesday. The two new cases of CWD, include one on the Horse Creek feedground, which is located just southeast of Jackson in Elk Hunt Area 84.

Elk Hunt Area 62 is bordered by CWD-positive Elk Hunt Area 67 to the southwest and overlaps multiple CWD-positive mule deer hunt areas.

Horse Creek feedground is the fourth feedground in the state to have confirmed positive for CWD among elk since the first discovery of the disease at Scab Creek feedground in January. Game and Fish operates 21 feedgrounds in northwest Wyoming, where supplemental winter feeding has occurred for more than a century. Elk Hunt Area 84, which had previously tested positive for CWD, is bordered by Elk Hunt Area 87 which is also CWD-positive.

The discovery of CWD on feedgrounds in 2025 was anticipated as the disease has continued to spread across the state throughout deer, elk and moose hunt areas. Huge swaths of Wyoming have been reported CWD positive in deer and elk hunt areas while the only cases of CWD in moose were reported west of Pinedale largely in Lincoln County.

CWD is a fatal neurological disease that affects deer, elk and moose. Continued monitoring of CWD over time is important to help Game and Fish understand the potential impacts of the disease and evaluate future management actions. Game and Fish personnel will continue to monitor feedgrounds for elk displaying signs of CWD.

In a letter to the Tribune, a group of conservation and wildlife advocates called out Game and Fish for what they call “decades of negligence in maintaining a system that has long been identified as a breeding ground for disease.”

“This is just the beginning of an entirely preventable crisis, and it’s unfolding exactly as scientists have predicted for decades,” said Dagny Signorelli, Wyoming Director of Western Watersheds Project. “Chronic Wasting Disease is not just a wildlife issue, it’s a Wyoming issue. Elk are the backbone of Wyoming’s hunting economy, tourism and local businesses. If the state agency doesn’t take immediate action to cease feeding elk in a way that spreads disease, we’re looking at long-term population collapses that will devastate the economies these feedgrounds were supposed to support.”

According to Jonathan Ratner, director of Sage Steppe Wild, the fact that elk are falling over dead from CWD on feedlots means that they contracted the disease about two to three years ago.

“This means the feedlots are already fully contaminated and are spreading the deadly prions across the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem,” Ratner said in a press release sent earlier this month.

CWD spreading

CWD was first identified in free-ranging mule deer in southeastern Wyoming in 1985, followed by elk in 1986. Based on early surveillance data and prevalence estimates, a small area in southeastern Wyoming containing the Laramie Mountain mule deer herd, South Converse mule deer herd, Goshen Rim mule deer herd and Laramie Peak elk herd was termed the “core endemic area” where Game and Fish officials believe that CWD has been present for the longest time. Over the past 20 years, surveillance data has shown increased prevalence and distribution of CWD in Wyoming, particularly in deer. CWD is now found across most of the state, with new detections suggesting continued westward spread of the disease.

Early in the disease, animals may show no clinical signs, according to Game and Fish reports. Later, affected animals show progressive weight loss, reluctance to move, excessive salivation, droopy ears, increased drinking and urinating, lethargy and death. Animals will test positive for the disease long before these clinical signs appear and the majority of CWD-positive animals that are harvested appear completely normal and healthy.

Evidence suggests that CWD is transmitted via saliva, urine, feces or even infected carcasses. Animals may also be infected through the environment via contamination of feed or pasture with CWD prions (which can persist for many years after the death of a CWD positive animal). The most likely route of exposure is through ingestion, Game and Fish reports.

Supplemental feeding is thought to improve overwinter elk survival and reduce the commingling of elk with cattle during months when brucellosis transmission risk is highest, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported in a published paper titled “Evaluating Management Alternatives for Wyoming Elk Feedgrounds in Consideration of Chronic Wasting Disease.”

Conservation groups frustrated

Traditional winter ranges for elk on public lands are disproportionately appropriated for livestock grazing, said a group of conservation organizations operating in the state. A group, which includes the Western Watersheds Project, Sage Steppe Wild, Wyoming Wildlife Advocates, Yellowstone to Uintas Connection and the Gallatin Wildlife Association, stated in a press release that instead of allowing elk to migrate and use their natural habitat, they are confined to feedgrounds, an artificial and unsustainable practice that ensures disease thrives.

“The consequences of livestock prioritization are now fully visible; rampant disease, declining elk numbers, and a landscape where public lands serve private ranching interests rather than the wildlife and ecosystems they were meant to sustain,” the group said in a protest of regulations.

For over 35 years, scientists have warned that Wyoming’s artificial feeding operations unnaturally concentrate elk, dramatically increasing the likelihood of disease transmission, including CWD. If feedgrounds remain operational, a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study predicts that continued feeding will result in a 58% decline in elk across western Wyoming within 20 years due to CWD-related mortality.

A USGS-led expert panel estimated that elk aggregating on feedgrounds transmit CWD nearly double the transmission rate of free-ranging herds. Indirect transmission from contaminated soil and vegetation is estimated to be four times higher on feedgrounds compared to natural wintering areas, as CWD prions accumulate in the environment over time, creating persistent infection hotspots.

The group claims Wyoming management prioritizing livestock producers has been irresponsible and unethical.

“This isn’t just about science, it’s about responsibility,” said Kristin Combs, executive director for Wyoming Wildlife Advocates. “The state has a legal and ethical duty to protect Wyoming’s wildlife for future generations. Right now, they’re doing the exact opposite.”

They also linked the spread of the disease to the killing of predators across the state.

John Carter of Yellowstone to Uintas Connection noted, “What is troubling is that Wyoming continues to allow the persecution and killing of predators and scavengers that have the ability to eliminate sick animals and clean up diseased carcasses. These animals are nature’s way of protecting elk and other animals from disease spread.”

Clint Nagel, president of the Gallatin Wildlife Association of Bozeman said he was saddened by the decisions of state and federal agencies controlling feedgrounds.

“It is literally heartbreaking,” said Nagel, “to see the suffering and mortality of wildlife, and for what? From the lack of ethical and moral character practiced in states and federal agencies? Wildlife management has become wildlife manipulation. It doesn’t matter where it occurs. Wildlife in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem deserve better than what they are receiving.”  

The distribution and prevalence of CWD in Wyoming elk is less than that of deer, according to the Game and Fish reports. Currently, there are no documented direct population impacts in Wyoming elk from CWD, the department states on their website. While CWD has been found in free-ranging moose, there have been few detections, and there is no evidence that CWD is currently impacting moose populations.

Chronic Wasting Disease has mostly been detected in states west of the Mississippi, although cases have been detected in 36 U.S. states and four Canadian provinces in free-ranging cervids, and in 22 states and three provinces in captive cervid facilities, according to the USGS. The disease has also been found in reindeer, red deer, and/or moose in Finland, Norway and Sweden, and in captive cervids in South Korea.