Free-ranging elk populations of Wyoming.

Funding Sources: USGS, Wyoming Livestock-Wildlife Initiative, WY Game and Fish, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

Collaborators: Scott Creel (Montana State University), Brandon Scurlock, Eric Maichak, Jared Rogerson and Hank Edwards (Wyoming Game and Fish Department).

Students: Angela Brennan

Our current work expands its scope beyond the feedgrounds to elk populations across the GYE. With the exception of the feedgrounds, elk were previously thought to be poor hosts. However, we show that many elk populations have increased over the past 50 years and there have been coincident increases in brucellosis seroprevalence that is probably not due to spill-over from either bison or the feedgrounds. Thus, the reservoir status of elk appears to have changed as their populations recovered. These results may have important implications for the management of brucellosis in the GYE, sifting some of the focus from bison to elk. While one strategy may be to increase elk hunting as a disease control, our research suggest this may result in concentrating elk in areas with limited hunting access. Our ongoing work is on those factors (e.g. irrigation, hunting access, predator management) that lead to large elk groups and higher brucellosis seroprevalence across the GYE.

Citations:
Cross, PC, DM Heisey, BM Scurlock, WH Edwards, MR Ebinger, & A Brennan. 2010. Mapping Brucellosis Increases Relative to Elk Density Using Hierarchical Bayesian Models. PLoS ONE 5(4): e10322. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0010322.

Cross, PC, EK Cole, AP Dobson, WH Edwards, KL Hamlin, G Luikart, AD Middleton, BM Scurlock & PJ White. 2010. Probable causes of increasing elk brucellosis in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Ecological Applications 20:278-288.



Return to Disease Ecology Research Projects