Agency Lays Out Elk Options
CasperStarTribune.net and Southwest Wyoming Bureau
02 May 2006
Jeff Gearino

GREEN RIVER -- Since the outbreak of brucellosis in western Wyoming in 2003 that led to the loss of the state's brucellosis-free status, Game and Fish Department officials have been re-examining its feedground management program.

That's partly because some of the cattle that tested positive for the disease in 2003 grazed near the Muddy Creek feedground located southeast of Boulder. The Pinedale elk herd that used the feedground was suspected of spreading brucellosis to those nearby cattle herds.

A new brucellosis management plan for Muddy Creek and two other adjacent feedgrounds looks at that possible transmission scenario and makes a series of recommendations for lowering the risk of transmitting the disease between wildlife and livestock.

The department has released its first-ever individual feedground management plan that aims to reduce the risk of transmission of brucellosis between elk feeding at a state-run feedground and cattle that graze nearby.

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Wildlife Smuggled into U.S. an Increasing Bird-Flu Worry
Journalnow.com and The Associated Press
01 May 2006

Officials Have Plans to Stop Illegal Trade, Monitor Wild Birds

Bird flu entering the United States through smuggled wildlife is a growing worry for government officials already on the lookout for migrating wild birds.

The concern over the trade in wild animals, pets and animal parts has some precedent.

Gambian rats imported from Africa brought the monkeypox virus to the United States in 2003. They infected prairie dogs bought as pets, and 72 people in the Midwest became ill.

In 2004, two crested hawk-eagles carrying the virulent strain of the H5N1 bird flu virus were seized from the luggage of a Thai passenger at Brussels International Airport in Belgium. The passenger had planned to sell the birds to a Belgian falconer.

None of the 25 people exposed to the virus became ill. Officials killed 200 parrots and 600 smaller birds that had contact with the crested hawk-eagles.

"We're very concerned about it coming into the U.S. by whatever means," said Claudia McMurray, the head of the State Department's Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs.

The H5N1 virus has spread through Asia, Europe and Africa but has not arrived in the United States. Scientists fear that the virus could evolve into a form that would pass easily from person to person, setting off a worldwide epidemic.

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