This week, the acting Bridger-Teton National Forest supervisor signed a record of decision allowing the Wyoming Game and Fish Department to continue operating two elk feedgrounds on National Forest System lands until October 2028. The action buys the state time to consolidate its feedground-management planning in a move some critics describe as delaying the inevitable as chronic wasting disease continues to spread across the West.
The decision renewed permits for the Dell Creek and Forest Lake feedgrounds, both of which have provided elk herds with supplemental winter feed for more than 40 years. Rather than requiring yearly permit renewals, the new authorization extends both permits through September 30, 2028, aligning them with five other WGFD-managed feedgrounds already set to expire that year. The goal of renewing the permits, the U.S. Forest Service says, is to bring all seven feedgrounds under a single comprehensive environmental review to analyze their collective impact on BTNF lands, wildlife and nearby communities.
“We understand that elk feedgrounds are a contentious issue in western Wyoming, and we are working to balance agricultural protection and wildlife health,” acting Forest Supervisor Bekee Hotze, who is standing in temporarily for Supervisor Chad Hudson while he is on assignment, wrote in a press release announcing the decision.
According to the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission, the feeding program reduces conflicts with nearby livestock operations, limits the risk of brucellosis transmission to livestock, maintains elk population objectives, and prevents vehicle collisions.
When the permits expire in two years, a new National Environmental Policy Act process will be prepared to collectively evaluate all seven feedgrounds. It will be the first time the Forest Service will have assessed the full scope of its feedground footprint in a single analysis. In the meantime, the state is working to finalize its Feedground Management Action Plans, a public-involvement process to explore short- and long-term solutions for reducing elk reliance on supplemental feeding while lowering disease transmission risks of CWD and brucellosis.
The Forest Service’s final environmental impact statement analyzed four alternatives: continuing current feeding management for 20 years; a full phase-out; emergency feeding only; and the no-action alternative, which would have ended feeding entirely. Tribes consulted during the process favored the no-feeding alternative. The Forest Service ultimately chose to authorize continued use of Dell Creek, approximately 35 acres, and Forest Park, approximately 100 acres, through 2028.
In the record of decision, Forest Supervisor Chad Hudson directly acknowledged the tension embedded in that choice. “I clearly understand and acknowledge that the WGFC’s action of feeding elk in feedgrounds results in artificially high concentrations of elk during winter and early spring, which increases risk of disease transmission,” he wrote. “With CWD now established in BTNF, there is a likelihood that the population-limiting effects of this disease to elk, mule deer, and moose will be hastened by supplemental feeding.”
Despite that acknowledgment, Hudson determined that the shortened timeframe would allow the state time to implement Feedground Management Action Plans for each elk herd and give the Forest Service the opportunity to administer all feedgrounds on National Forest lands simultaneously, improving management efficiency and setting the stage for a single comprehensive decision in 2028.
That reasoning hasn’t satisfied critics. Kristin Combs, executive director of Wyoming Wildlife Advocates, said she sees the decision as the Forest Service deferring to the state rather than acting on what the science demands. The agency, she said, is “kind of just going along with the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission and their creation of these FMAPs.
“I’m glad to see there will be a comprehensive EIS done for all of the feedgrounds in 2028,” Combs continued, “but the problem is that if we were doing this 20 years ago, we’d be ahead of the problem. It’s too late, and now we have a scenario where CWD is already on feedgrounds and going to continue to get worse.”
The permit extension comes at a fraught moment for feedground management in the state. In 2025, six elk found dead on or near the Dell Creek Feedground tested positive for CWD. In March of that year, there were also confirmed cases at the Black Butte and Horse Creek feedgrounds.
CWD has been spreading nationally since it was first identified in a Colorado mule deer in 1967 and is now present in 36 states. The disease, caused by misfolded prions and always fatal, spreads most readily where animals congregate in close quarters, precisely the condition that feedgrounds create. In January 2025, the WGFD confirmed the first CWD case directly on a Wyoming elk feedground, when an adult cow elk was found dead at the Scab Creek feedground near Pinedale.
Brad Hoving, Jackson Regional Supervisor for Wyoming Game and Fish said there have been no CWD detections in the Jackson region yet this year. He noted that the Jackson Herd FMAP is expected to be finalized in June, at which point the agency will begin work on either the Fall Creek Herd or Afton Herd action plans. Each plan takes approximately one year to complete. He noted that all elk herds in the region carry brucellosis, with prevalence averaging around 30 percent.
The concern of disease transmission extends beyond Wyoming’s borders. In February, Mountain Journal reported on CWD in Montana, and found the disease has been detected in 33 percent of Montana hunting districts and in all susceptible species, with prevalence as high as 39 percent in white-tailed deer in some areas, according to recent testimony from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks wildlife biologist Bevin McCormick. Leading CWD researcher Peter Larsen has described Wyoming and Colorado as the “epicenter” of the disease in the United States, a designation that underscores the stakes of how Wyoming manages its feedgrounds going forward.
“There’s no shred of scientific evidence that feeding is good for wildlife populations. It’s spreading disease. Other states aren’t doing it. We’ve got to stop feeding.”
Kristin combs, executive director, Wyoming Wildlife Advocates
The slow pace of that planning process has frustrated wildlife advocates who have long argued that Wyoming’s feedground system is incompatible with modern wildlife disease management. Combs told Mountain Journal earlier this year that other states made the decision years ago to stop feeding elk and helped livestock producers transition to conflict-prevention strategies instead. Wyoming, she argues, has not done enough to support a similar shift.
And the stakes are significant. A 2025 report by the U.S. Geological Survey research projects that the Jackson Elk Herd could decline by more than 50 percent if current feeding practices on the National Elk Refuge in Jackson Hole continue. Feedgrounds were established in the early 20th century largely to protect crops and haystacks from wintering elk pushed out of their natural range by agricultural development, a management legacy that Wyoming’s ranching and agricultural communities have come to depend on, and that wildlife managers now find themselves trying to navigate.
Combs said the slow pace of that process reflects a broader political reality. “There’s been incredible pressure from the community to keep high populations of elk, and we just can’t do that anymore,” she said. A few politically connected ranchers and the outfitting and elk hunting communities have driven much of that pressure, and the result is a management system that “continues kicking the can down the road,” Combs added, instead of focusing on real solutions. “There’s no shred of scientific evidence that feeding is good for wildlife populations. It’s spreading disease. Other states aren’t doing it. We’ve got to stop feeding.”
Game and Fish has made some adjustments to feedground operations in recent years, including feeding every other day when conditions allow, expanding feeding areas to reduce elk density, monitoring for sick animals, and shortening feeding seasons where possible.
For now, the record of decision gives Wyoming a window to finish its action plans, complete its herd-level analyses, and prepare for what will likely be a consequential federal review of the state’s elk feeding program in 2028.
