News Release
June 8, 2009

UW collaborates with WGFD on elk abortion study

By Rachel Knutson
University of Wyoming journalism graduate

The University of Wyoming is collaborating with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) on an elk abortion and live birth study in western Wyoming in an effort to help prevent the spread of brucellosis.

The study, which started in 2006 and continues until 2010, is called the Ecology of Elk Abortion and Parturition in the Brucellosis Endemic Area of Wyoming, or Vaginally Implanted Transmitter (VIT) for short.

The VIT research has contributed additional information to facilitate the understanding of brucellosis in elk. This is in addition to the test-and-slaughter research (see separate story).

Participants of the VIT study help place and trace radio transmitters in pregnant feed-ground wintering elk in the Pinedale and Big Piney area of Sublette County, and feed-ground and free-ranging wintering elk in central Teton County’s Buffalo Valley.

Portable ultrasound is used to determine pregnancy, said one of the researchers, Laura Meadows, a graduate student in the UW College of Agriculture’s Department of Veterinary Sciences. The transmitter emits one signal when warm inside the elk and a different signal when it has been expelled and cooled, which helps researchers determine if an elk either gave birth or aborted her calf. 

The results of tracking these transmitters (in Meadows’ case sometimes a two- to four-day ride into western Wyoming’s rugged backcountry on horseback in the spring) have been used to produce habitat location data of elk abortions or live births.

WGFD spokesman Mark Gocke said, “Elk are calving in places beyond what was originally documented. The implications of tracing elk allow us to determine areas we should exclude cattle from in the spring, preventing them from coming in contact with elk calving areas and thus brucellosis.”

The results also contribute to information about the circumstances of the abortion and help researchers determine if brucellosis was the cause. Meadows hopes the data will eventually help predict which elk are going to abort.     

Meadows said both the test-and-slaughter and VIT studies are important because brucellosis is a prominent problem worldwide for the livestock industry and for wildlife in general. She hopes the results of the research will help people better manage livestock and wildlife and the interactions between them.

Department of Veterinary Sciences Associate Professor Todd Cornish, who is also involved in both studies, added the methods used for brucellosis research may also be applied to the study of other diseases, like tuberculosis. In addition, he said, the studies are significant because it is important to many, including ranchers, that Wyoming retains its brucellosis-free status.

Cornish and Meadows also feel a personal connection to the research. They have made good friends with and learned a great deal from their WGFD counterparts in the field. Cornish said he will continue studying brucellosis, and Meadows hopes to continue working with livestock and eventually attend veterinary school after graduating later this year.

Meadows, though, said she will miss the opportunity to be so close to so many elk in what she describes as “an awesome sight.” In addition, her family has a history of working with elk.

“My great-grandfather was involved with starting the National Elk Refuge near Jackson, and my father fed elk on the South Park feed ground.”

More information about the VIT and test-and-slaughter studies are on the WGFD Web site at http://gf.state.wy.us/wildlife/Brucellosis/index.asp.

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Contact: Robert Waggener, Editor
Phone: (307) 766-3571
E-mail: robertw@uwyo.edu

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