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Hunters Urged To Help With Brucellosis Research

LARAMIE – Not only is there a call out to give blood these days, there’s also a request for hunters to take blood.

Nearly 6,000 antlerless elk license holders in the Cody, Lander and Cokeville areas will be receiving kits to take a blood sample from their quarry. The sample will be tested to check the range and prevalence of brucellosis in elk. Brucellosis is a bacterial disease, which can induce abortions in elk, bison and cattle.

Wyoming Game and Fish Department Disease Specialist Hank Edwards said the blood sampling done by hunters is a very important part of the state’s long-running brucellosis monitoring program.

Edwards said instructions are included with each kit and hunters should follow the guidelines carefully to ensure the samples are usable. “Timely collection of the blood and then getting the sample in the mail to the laboratory as quickly as possible is very important,” he said. “Hunters should also try to keep the sample from freezing.”

Only about half of the hunters receiving kits harvest an elk and send the samples back to the lab, and of those, only half are usable. “The more viable samples we get, the better information we have on the status of the disease,” Edwards said.

Since 1991, over 7,300 elk blood samples have been analyzed in Wyoming for brucellosis. To date, the disease has only been documented in western Wyoming, with prevalence levels of 1 to 3 percent in the southern herd units surrounding feedgrounds, and from 9 to 10 percent in the corresponding northern herd units, around Dubois, Meeteetse and Cody.

“The northern units have been of great interest over the past several years, where the historical prevalence was similar to the southern herd units, but for unknown reasons the incidence of this disease has dramatically increased,” Edwards said.

Game and Fish personnel will also be collecting blood samples in the field this season from hunter-harvested elk in the Wheatland and Douglas areas.

-WGFD-