National Elk Refuge detects second case of chronic wasting disease
JACKSON (WNE) — The National Elk Refuge has detected chronic wasting disease in a second elk that wintered on the National Elk Refuge.
The cow elk was found dead on April 20. The apparent cause of death was predation. The elk was between three and five years old and was in poor body condition, as evidenced by its bone marrow.
Chronic wasting disease is an always fatal, highly transmissible neurological illness spread through feces, saliva and urine. It takes elk about 16 months to appear ill, though they likely spread the disease prior to the onset of symptoms. Eventually, infected elk begin losing weight, losing awareness, becoming anti-social, grinding their teeth, excessively salivating and more.
The refuge, which winters the vast majority of the 11,000-animal Jackson Elk Herd, announced its first case in May. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department, which tests CWD samples for the refuge, notified the refuge of the second positive case on May 15.
The National Elk Refuge did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
The cases come following a historically mild winter in which no supplemental feeding occurred on the refuge for the first time since 2018. That means that elk were more spread out than they would be in a typical year. There were about 10,000 elk wintering on the refuge — double the objective of 5,000 wintering wapiti.
Wildlife managers first detected the disease in the Jackson Elk Herd in December 2020, in a hunter-harvested cow elk killed in Grand Teton National Park.
This story was published on July 16, 2026.
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