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Two cases of Chronic Wasting Disease were confirmed by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) in a press release on March 17. One was on the Horse Creek feedground near Hoback and another detected near Cody.
The case near Hoback marks the fourth instance of the disease on Cowboy State feedgrounds in the last three months. Multiple carcasses on feedgrounds near Pinedale and Bondurant also tested positive this year. Before December 2024, the 100% fatal, easily transmissible, brain disease had not been detected on any of the state’s 22 elk feedgrounds.
The rapid detection worries game managers and confirms what the state has feared for years.
“Although it’s very concerning, it’s not totally a surprise that we’re starting to detect it on feedgrounds,” wildlife disease biologist for the Jackson region biologist Ben Wise said in a recent interview with KHOL.
Wyoming Game and Fish commissioners decided last year to continue the controversial practice of feeding elk on 21 of the state’s 22 feedgrounds managed by WGFD. Originally intended as a way to keep elk alive through rough winters, experts say feeding also makes disease spread more likely by bringing elk in closer contact.
The disease of folded proteins, called prions, first appeared in Wyoming in mule deer in the 1980s. It made its way westward, appearing in elk in 2020, but before January 2025 had not been officially detected within the borders of a feedground.
This winter’s rapid detections mean the disease is more widespread than previously thought, especially on the Dell Creek Feedground near Bondurant, Wise said.
“We’re seeing the ramifications of having CWD in that population,” he said, “we’re finding dead animals that are skinny, emaciated and they’re coming up positive.”
About 10,000 are in the Jackson Herd. But the disease is also threatening to other ungulates such as moose, elk and deer. A U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study showed the disease could kill about 20,000 elk in western Wyoming over the next two decades.
