Federal and state officials confirmed Monday that chronic wasting disease, an always-fatal neurological illness, has arrived on the National Elk Refuge, infecting an elk from the Jackson Elk Herd — the largest migratory elk herd in North America. The discovery, announced in a joint statement by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, marks the first documented case of the disease in the refuge’s elk population and raises urgent questions about the future of the 11,000-strong herd that winters on the 24,700-acre refuge just north of Jackson, Wyoming.
The infected cow elk was first spotted in poor condition and euthanized by refuge staff on April 15, in accordance with protocol. Biological samples were sent to a Wyoming Game and Fish laboratory, and a second lab confirmed the presence of the malformed prion protein that causes chronic wasting disease. Game and Fish had tested 50 hunter-harvested elk from the refuge in 2025, along with 14 elk that died after the hunting season, without detecting the disease.
The arrival of chronic wasting disease on the refuge heightens a decades-long controversy over Wyoming’s unique elk feedground program. The refuge has supplied supplemental hay to wintering elk for more than a century, and Wyoming Game and Fish operates 21 additional feedgrounds west of the Continental Divide. The practice concentrates hundreds of elk at each site, creating conditions that scientists say promote the spread of the disease. This winter, however, mild conditions meant no feed was distributed — one of only 11 winters since 1912 without supplemental feeding.
Lloyd Dorsey, an environmental activist who has lived in Teton County for 50 years surrounded by feedgrounds, said the detection was “not unexpected” but condemned the continuation of feeding. “It’s a shame that the wildlife management agencies allowed the feeding programs to continue this long when they could have, should have, been phased out long, long ago as they were virtually almost everywhere else in North America,” Dorsey said. He called continued feeding “the height of malfeasance and irresponsibility.”
State wildlife officials maintain that feedgrounds serve to keep elk separate from cattle that can carry brucellosis, to provide a reliable elk population for hunters, and to keep the animals off private property and highways. But with the disease now detected on the refuge, the 2021 management strategy for the refuge is receiving renewed attention. The plan calls on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to request that Wyoming consider lowering the state’s population objectives for the Jackson herd, and it recommends a review of the annual antler collection conducted by Scouting America — formerly the Boy Scouts — which gathers and auctions roughly 8,000 pounds of antlers each spring. “Considerations should be made for antler material entering medicinal or food chain,” the strategy states, noting that some antlers are used as nutritional supplements or dog chews.
The strategy also outlines biosecurity measures, including incinerating parts of elk that die on the refuge, using protective gear, and requiring horse-riding hunters to clean their horses’ hooves before trailering off the refuge.
State and federal officials did not immediately answer questions about whether the discovery threatens Jackson’s drinking water. The town draws its water from several wells on the south end of the refuge, in the area where the infected elk was found. There is no confirmed case of chronic wasting disease infecting a human, although scientists warn that consuming meat from an infected animal could pose a risk and advise against eating game from areas where the disease is present.
The National Elk Refuge case comes days after Wyoming Game and Fish announced on May 4 that chronic wasting disease had been detected at the Muddy Creek feedground at the southwestern end of the Wind River Range — the fifth state feedground where the disease has been found. The agency first discovered the disease on a feedground in 2024. Chronic wasting disease was initially identified in a deer at a Colorado wildlife laboratory in 1967 and has since spread across North America.