LARAMIE — The Wyoming Game and Fish Department mailed or handed out about 8,500 blood collection kits to elk hunters in 2025 to test for brucellosis. The Game and Fish’s Wildlife Health Laboratory received 753 samples suitable for testing, and 22 tested positive for exposure to the bacterial disease.
Annual surveillance is conducted in elk herds that surround the brucellosis designated surveillance area — or DSA — and in herds that do not utilize state or federal feedgrounds. Additional surveillance occurs in one-quarter of the hunt areas outside of the DSA annually, which provides coverage of the entire brucellosis non-endemic area every four years. More than 25,000 elk blood samples have been analyzed by the lab since the program’s inception in 1991.
Surveillance in 2025 included the western slope of the Bighorn Mountains, the eastern and southern border of the DSA, the Cody elk herd and the eastern edge of Wyoming.
Brucellosis prevalence in the Cody elk herd has increased from about 14% during a five-year period from 2016-20 to 20% from 2021-25. The Gooseberry elk herd in the southwest Bighorn River basin in Hot Springs and Park counties, saw brucellosis prevalence drop from nearly 25% in 2016-20 to just over 20% in 2021-25. The Wiggins Fork elk herd in northwest Wyoming saw brucellosis prevalence drop from just under 10% in 2016-20 to just below 5% in 2021-26.
In 2026, the rotating surveillance area will focus on the eastern and southern slopes of the Bighorn Mountains, which encompasses elk hunt areas 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 47, 48 and 120. Enhanced surveillance will be conducted in Elk Hunt Area 25 and in the Cody elk herd — hunt areas 55, 56, 58, 59, 60 and 61. Efforts to survey around the eastern and southern border of the DSA and along the western slope of the Bighorn Mountains will continue.
Jessica Jennings, Game and Fish Wildlife Health Lab manager, cannot stress enough the critical role that hunters play in contributing to our knowledge of brucellosis prevalence within the state of Wyoming.
“If you receive a sampling kit in the mail and are lucky enough to harvest an elk, please consider submitting a sample,” she said.
To view the annual report and learn more about brucellosis in Wyoming, go to the Game and Fish website.
—WGFD—
