FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 13, 2025
Media Contacts
- Dagny Signorelli, Western Watersheds Project, (307) 302-9931, dagny@westernwatersheds.org
- Jonathan Ratner, Sage Steppe Wild, (307) 231-1325 Jonathan@Wild-Sage.org
- Kristin Combs, Wyoming Wildlife Advocates, (307) 413-4116, kristin@wyowild.org
- John Carter, Yellowstone to Uintas Connection (435) 881-5404, jcoyote23@gmail.com
- Clinton Nagel, Gallatin Wildlife Association, 406-600-1792, clint_nagel@yahoo.com
The Legacy of Brian Nesvik: Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s Failure to Act Fuels Chronic Wasting Disease Outbreak on Elk Feedgrounds
PINEDALE, Wyo. — Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is spreading rapidly through Wyoming’s controversial elk feedgrounds, with confirmed cases now detected on at least three feedgrounds since late 2024. Conservation groups and wildlife advocates are calling out the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) for decades of negligence in maintaining a system that has long been identified as a breeding ground for disease.
The latest CWD detection occurred at Black Butte feedground, where one elk has been confirmed dead from CWD. This follows the discovery of two CWD-positive elk deaths at Dell Creek feedground earlier this year. Additionally, Scab Creek feedground saw one CWD infected elk death late last year. These outbreaks confirm long-standing predictions (Attachments 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) that once CWD reaches a feedground, it will spread aggressively due to the unnaturally high densities of elk maintained there, demonstrated by the movement between at least three feedgrounds in just a few months, 50 miles apart.
“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.”
In 2005, conservation groups formally asked the state to close Scab Creek feedground, citing concerns over disease transmission, including the inevitable spread of CWD. The Greater Yellowstone Coalition, Wyoming Outdoor Council, and Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance submitted a plan to then-Governor Dave Freudenthal, urging the phased closure of several feedgrounds, including Scab Creek, to prevent exactly this kind of outbreak (Attachment 4). The state ignored those warnings, and now, 20 years later, the consequences are playing out exactly as predicted.
“The fact that elk are falling over dead from CWD on feedlots means that they contracted the disease 2-3 years ago. This means the feedlots are already fully contaminated and are spreading the deadly prions across the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Nesvik and his predecessors chose industry boot licking over their moral, ethical and public trust duties and now the entire ecosystem is paying the price for their spinelessness.” said Jonathan Ratner, Director of Sage Steppe Wild.
Traditional winter ranges for elk on public lands are disproportionately appropriated for livestock grazing. 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.
For over 35 years, scientists, including those in the 2023 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) report, have warned that Wyoming’s artificial feeding operations unnaturally concentrate elk, dramatically increasing the likelihood of disease transmission, including CWD, a 100% fatal neurological disease that threatens the long-term health of elk herds. If feedgrounds remain operational, the USGS study predicts that continued feeding will result in 4,200 elk deaths, a 58% decline, across western Wyoming within 20 years due to CWD-related mortality.
Scientists have quantified just how much more contagious CWD becomes in fed elk populations. A USGS-led expert panel estimated that elk aggregating on feedgrounds transmit CWD nearly double the transmission rate of free-ranging herds. Even more concerning, 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.
Wyoming’s handling of this crisis is not just a failure of wildlife management, it is a violation of the Public Trust Doctrine, which requires the state to steward wildlife for the benefit of the public, not special interests. WGFD’s continued operation of feedgrounds despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary is a clear breach of their public trust responsibilities. Feeding elk in a way that spreads a deadly disease is fundamentally incompatible with that duty, and they must immediately cease feeding elk in a manner that accelerates CWD transmission.
“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.”
John Carter of the 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.”
The ongoing persistence of Wyoming’s elk feedgrounds is closely tied to the tenure of Brian Nesvik, the former WGFD Director, who has been nominated by President Trump to lead the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. During his time at WGFD, Nesvik supported policies that maintained high-density elk feedgrounds, despite extensive scientific research showing that such conditions accelerate the spread of CWD. These policies largely align with the interests of the livestock industry, ensuring that elk remained concentrated on feedgrounds rather than dispersing naturally onto their historic winter ranges, a move that signals a continued disregard for sound wildlife management.
“It is literally heartbreaking”, said Clint Nagel, President of the Gallatin Wildlife Association of Bozeman, Montana “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.”
Attachments:
- Map showing feedgrounds and CWD deaths
- 2023 USGS report with CWD predictions
- 1996 column by WWF President calling to reduce dependency on feedgrounds to avoid catastrophe in the future
- 2005 conservation group proposed alternatives to feedgrounds to prevent disease
- 2007 op-ed calling for phase-out of feedgrounds to protect elk and big game from CWD
- 2013 column asking WGFD to close feedgrounds to avoid CWD
