The intent of this column is not to cast stones at Vermont's deer management plan which I personally believe is mostly headed in the right direction. No, I simply have a question that's been bugging me since spending a few weeks in the Northern Rockies a couple of summers ago. You see out there, wildlife populations could not be sustained without a serious supplemental feeding program for deer and elk. But wait a minute. Wasn't CWD first discovered in mule deer in Colorado in the mid 1960's and in elk in Wyoming in the late 70's? Of course it was, and over the last 40 years it has been documented in 14 other states and 2-3 Canadian provinces. Here's the hitch; Vermont has outlawed feeding deer and specifically sites the danger of CWD transmission as the primary reason for the ban. Western states collectively spend millions of dollars on hay every winter to feed huge numbers of deer and elk. The federal government feeds 5,000 or more animals each winter on the National Elk Refuge in Jackson Hole alone.

Speaking of Jackson Hole, I took my inquest to the internet search engines and found a series of articles on the feeding grounds from the Jackson Hole News & Guide. This liberal bastion of out-of-state rhetoric in the heart of cowboy country is an interesting dichotomy in its own right. The postings concerning elk & deer feeding typically support a total ban on feeding for mostly political reasons but I did come across a disturbing concept being promoted by anti-hunting groups. Get this: their solution is to close the feeding grounds, acknowledging the probable starvation of 80% of the deer and elk herds but when viewed in conjunction with the continued protection of growing wolf and grizzly populations; somehow, miraculously, the natural order of things will be restored in flawless beauty and collective harmony. Nobody will ever have an excuse to hunt again.

But, nobody's talking about CWD!

I spoke with Terry Pollard, his family has outfitted in the Bridger Wilderness and Wind River Mountains of Western Wyoming for 5 generations and he is active in the maintenance of several of the large feed grounds in the Pinedale area. I asked him straight out why nobody is worried about the spread of CWD?

"The state feed ground program has been in place since 1912 with our current 22 sites on the map since the 60's. The discussion about the spread of disease with the wintering elk is as hot a topic today as it's ever been but has little to do with Chronic Wasting Disease."

It seems that the general consensus concerning CWD is that it has probably always been around or at least since the early 19th century. You haven't read a lot about it lately because there isn't any new, news. Every year some animals test positive for it but the numbers are reasonably stable and certainly not what you would expect from states that feed thousands of animals in close proximity. You would think that if Chronic Wasting Disease was spreading among these wintering herds you might have heard something about it. After all, the practice has been in place for nearly a century.

According to Terry, the problem is a disease called Brucellosis which affects the reproductive system and can be passed from elk to cattle and visa versa.

"The feed grounds are actually a way for us to keep our wild herds separated from free ranging cattle and provide the primary means for curbing the spread of Brucellosis."

Dumbstruck, I asked the question again, "So Terry, it's really not about CWD?"
His answer didn't change and so my quandary remains.