By Rosalie Westenskow
Domestic elk farms and hunting preserves constitute a growing business in Utah, and, although most state officials say the livestock do not pose serious risks to wild herds, a recent escape from an Idaho elk farm has fueled concerns about the practice.
In August, more than 160 elk escaped from a hunting preserve in eastern Idaho, prompting the state”s governor to call for the “immediate destruction” of the animals by licensed hunters and property owners.
“There is a serious risk of disease and an altered gene pool from these domestic elk,” said Idaho Gov. Jim Risch in a press release.
Both the escape and Risch”s response have brought national attention to an on-going debate over whether or not domestic elk pose a threat to indigenous animals through the transmission of disease or the alteration of the gene pool.
Several states currently allow domestic elk farming, including many of Utah”s neighbors. Government officials in New Mexico and Colorado told The Daily Universe their overall experience with elk farming has been positive, but some Idaho officials expressed concern over the issue.
“These elk farms present some significant management problems,” said Steve Schmidt, a regional supervisor for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.
However, most Utah officials argue that stringent regulations over elk farming, legalized in the state in 1997 through the Domesticated Elk Act, would prevent a disaster similar to the Idaho escape. In many ways, Utah”s laws governing elk farming are more strict than those in Idaho. For instance, while Idaho does not require the licensure of elk farms or hunting preserves, in Utah, individuals must receive a license from the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food in order to operate an elk farm. This license must be renewed yearly.
Utah now has 40 operating elk farms, seven hunting parks and, in 2005, had a total of 2,685 elk in the industry, according to an annual report of agricultural statistics from the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food.
Raised for a variety of purposes, ranchers make a profit off the big game animals” meat and velvet antlers, which are cut off the elk, dried, ground into powder and sold for medicinal purposes. The elk are also sold to private hunting parks, legalized through a 1999 amendment to the Domesticated Elk Act. On the hunting parks, interested individuals can go on guided hunts, paying large sums to bag a trophy bull. (See related article).
The major concerns that arise from domestic elk farming deal with genetic purity and disease. In the elk industry, there has been some interbreeding between elk and red deer, a sub-species of elk that are not free-ranging in the United States, said Kerry Mower, wildlife health specialist for the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, where elk farming has been prevalent for more than 20 years.
“Back East they have interbred the two in an effort to increase the antler mass of the elk,” Mower said. “[Then] they can offer a trophy elk they might not be able to get naturally.”
While artificially-large antlers may be a positive trait in domestic animals being sold to hunting preserves, it may not be beneficial in the wild.
As a result, Utah has implemented regulations which require that all elk imported across state lines for domestic farming must be proven genetically pure. This can be done through a variety of methods, including a blood or DNA genetic purity test.
Terry Menlove, acting director of the Animal Industry Division at UDAF, said genetic purity tests eliminate the risk of domestic elk altering the gene pool if an escape does occur.
“Domestically farmed elk must be Rocky Mountain elk, exactly the same type of elk as our [wild] elk population here,” Menlove said.
While restrictions are also in place to prevent imported domestic elk from bringing disease into the state, some Utah officials expressed concern that regulations may not be enough to eliminate the possibility of disease transmission between populations.
John Pratt, captain in the law enforcement section of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, said there is a greater possibility of domestic elk bringing in diseases because ranchers can transport them much more quickly than a wild herd would naturally move. This artificial transportation of animals increases the possibility that an animal with a disease could enter the state of Utah.
“We have a lot more movement interstate in the elk ranching community than in the wild elk community,” Pratt said. “Utah”s wildlife are at risk.”
Three diseases are of particular concern: tuberculosis; brucellosis, which causes cows to abort their fetuses, among other things; and chronic wasting disease, a disease of the brain and central nervous system in elk and other members of the deer family.
CWD had been found in some wild deer in Utah, but never in wild or domestic elk. Live animals can not be tested for CWD the way they can for other diseases, so the state attempts to keep any elk with the disease out by requiring that all imported animals originate from herds that have been “participating in a verified CWD surveillance program for a minimum of five years,” according to state elk farming rules.
The disease, which is related to mad cow disease, has been found in captive elk and/or deer populations in Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada, according to the Web site for the CWD Alliance, an organization which supports efforts to control the disease.
There is currently no evidence that the disease can be passed from livestock to humans, according to the CWD Alliance Web site.
Dr. Earl Rogers, Utah”s acting state veterinarian, said there has never been any known transmission of any disease between wild and domestic elk in the state. In fact, many Utah officials, including Rogers, and elk farmers said they were more concerned about wild elk transmitting disease to domestic elk than vice versa.
“The source of disease, if it were present, would come from outside of the pen, because all of the domestic elk have been tested,” Rogers said.
At Sagewood Ranches in South Jordan, owner Otto Jones runs his 90 elk through routine testing every year-precautions which he said he believes will prevent the possibility of his animals spreading disease to wild animals.
“The fear of domesticated animals is really quite ludicrous,” he said. “We run ”em through the chutes [a narrow enclosure which keeps the animal stationary] each year, test their blood, take fecal samples and hair samples and send them [the samples] to a laboratory at Utah State.”
On farms such as Jones”, law requires the owners to send in the brain stem of any animal more than 16 months old that dies, either naturally or otherwise. The brain stem then undergoes a chronic wasting disease test.
“Of course if they ever discover it [CWD], your whole herd is eradicated,” Jones said.
While it is easy to locate a domestic herd and administer appropriate action for sick animals, in the wild it”s a whole different problem, another reason why the spread of disease into the wild is a concern.
“Once it [disease] gets into the wild population, you can”t control it,” Pratt said. “You can”t round them up and give them shots like you can with domestic elk. It”s going to take a lot of money and resources to depopulate an area of elk.”
Pratt emphasized that transmission of disease could occur either way: from the domestic elk to the wild elk and vice versa.
Casual contact between domestic and wild elk is a potential opportunity for the transmission of disease. While it has been known for some time that tuberculosis and brucellosis can be passed through nose-to-nose contact, scientists have been unsure of the method for transmitting CWD since its discovery. However, an article published this month in Science magazine cites research which suggests CWD may be passed between animals through saliva and blood.
The article, “Infectious Prions in the Saliva and Blood of Deer with Chronic Wasting Disease,” analyzes the ease with which CWD can circulate among deer, but applies to elk as well.
Some who worry about the risks involved in elk farming point to double-fencing as a way to safeguard against disease transmission, through casual contact, or escape.
John Bair, president of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, an organization of sportsmen in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and New Mexico, said double fencing is an important aspect of keeping the wild and domestic populations separate.
“The Division [of Wildlife Resources] has done a pretty good job of requiring ranchers to double fence and put other safeguards in place, but nothing”s ever 100 percent sure,” Bair said.
However, the Domesticated Elk Act does not currently require either elk farms or hunting parks to have more than a single, eight-foot tall, hi-tensile steel fence, which would allow nose-to-nose contact to occur between animals inside the fence and those outside.
“It is somewhat of a concern,” said Menlove, director of the Animal Industry Division. “But we view it as a greater concern that the wild elk would pass diseases to the domestic elk [through nose-to-nose contact].”
The fences at elk farms, along with compliance to all other rules and regulations, are inspected at least once a year by livestock inspectors in the Animal Industry Division of UDAF, Menlove said, while hunting parks are inspected about three to four times per year. The inspections help prevent rule breaking because an individual record of each animal is kept in Menlove”s office and they are verified at the time of inspection, he said.
The inspection reports are filed in the Animal Industry Division”s office, but are not open to the public, Menlove said. If an escape occurred, that would be reported to the Division of Wildlife Resources; however, smaller problems do not have to be reported.
“If there”s a problem with the fence, then we”re not obligated to report that to anyone,” Menlove said.
