Bangs Tests On Idaho
Elk Turn Up Reactors

BOISE, Idaho —(AP)— Eleven of 33 elk at the Rainey Creek winter feeding site in Swan Valley have tested positive for brucellosis, raising fears that infected elk could pass on the disease to nearby cattle herds.

To determine whether any cattle have been infected, the state Fish and Game and Agriculture departments will test elk and cattle near five other elk feeding sites in eastern Idaho.

If there is evidence elk have transmitted brucellosis to cattle in Idaho, it could have far-reaching impacts for elk hunters as well as ranchers, said Steve Huffaker, chief of wildlife for Fish and Game.

"We're doing everything we can to contain it (brucellosis)" he said recently.

Brucellosis can cause cattle to abort their young. In Montana, fears that buffalo infected with brucellosis will infect cattle have prompted the annual killing of buffalo that leave Yellowstone National Park.

Idaho, like Montana, is a brucellosis-free state. It earned that designation in the mid-'80s and state officials and cattle ranchers have fought to keep it. Without it, ranchers would have to pay for tests to clear animals leaving the state or vaccinate their herds, which they say is expensive.

Portable elk traps from Salmon and McCall are being shipped to eastern Idaho so officials can start trapping elk at winter feeding sites near the Idaho-Wyoming border, Huffaker said.

Some of the elk-feeding sites in eastern Idaho are run by local ranchers, and are not officially sanctioned by Fish and Game. Fish and Game manages the Rainey Creek site and subsidizes two others.

Huffaker said the tests will focus on the largest sites, at each of which an estimated 100 to 450 elk are feeding. If any elk test positive at the sites, cattle at nearby ranches also will be tested. Who will pay for the cattle tests is still unclear, officials said.

Even though 11 elk at Rainey Creek tested positive for brucellosis, it is possible that some of them do not have the disease but are carrying it, Huffaker said.