John S. Adams

HELENA – The Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission on Thursday approved a plan aimed at limiting the possibility of brucellosis transmission between wild elk and domestic cattle in the Paradise Valley.

The agency plan to try to prevent the spread of brucellosis from wild elk to cattle in the Paradise Valley was put forward last spring by a Park County working group. The plan calls for issuing limited-kill permits through May 15 in an effort to prevent commingling of wild elk and domestic livestock in an area where brucellosis has been detected. The proposal also allows for the installation of elk-proof fencing on private land upon the completion of an environmental assessment and commission approval.

The proposal has faced heated opposition from sportsmen’s and wildlife advocacy groups who say the agency is going too far to capitulate to private landowners at the expense of public wildlife.

“Our biggest thing is we want them to show what they are doing to the elk needs to be done,” said Les Castren, president of the Skyline Sportsmen’s Association in Butte. “We want proof that the elk are the problem.”

Paradise Valley livestock producer and elk brucellosis working group chairwoman Druska Kinkie said the 2015 elk brucellosis plan provides the agency and landowners tools to effectively prevent disease transmission with minimal impacts to wildlife.

“There’s a lot of flexibility and adaptability to this plan,” Kinkie said after the commission vote.

The commission voted 3-1 to adopt the plan.

Commissioner Matthew Tourtlotte of Billings was the lone “no” vote.

Commission Chairman Dan Vermillion of Livingston, Vice Chairman Richard Stuker of Chinook and Commissioner Gary Wolfe of Missoula voted in favor of the plan.

Commissioner Larry Wetsit of Wolf Point was not present at Thursday’s meeting.

Brucellosis is a bacterial disease that can cause cattle to abort their calves. It was introduced to the United States via European livestock more than a century ago before being transmitted to wildlife. Researchers say the disease has existed in bison and elk in the greater Yellowstone area since the 1930s. Efforts to eradicate brucellosis in domestic cattle have largely been successful, but wildlife in the Yellowstone region continue to serve as a reservoir.

In 2007, two cattle herds near Yellowstone National Park tested positive for brucellosis, despite the fact that neither herd had been in contact with bison, which livestock officials claim are the major threat of transmission to domestic cattle.

At that point, cattle producers and livestock officials turned their attention to elk, which also carry the disease and sometimes commingle with cattle during the elk calving season.

Proponents of the elk plan approved Thursday say it gives wildlife managers and private landowners tools to keep calving elk away from cattle on private land during the period where the risk of transmission is highest.

But opponents say the agency needs to conduct a far more rigorous study of the risks before they begin using resources that should be allocated to improving wildlife habitat for protecting private cattle herds.

FWP officials in May agreed not to issue any elk-kill permits this season after two sportsmen’s groups challenged the plan in court.

The Skyline Sportsmen’s Association and the Anaconda Sportsmen’s Club asked a Helena judge to block implementation and enforcement of the entire brucellosis plan on the basis that the agency and the Fish and Wildlife Commission overstepped their authority when they adopted it.

The Skyline Sportsmen Association opposed the plan again during public comment Thursday.

In detailed comments the plaintiffs’ attorneys submitted to the department during the public comment period on the plan, the two groups maintained that the agency needed to complete an in-depth environmental review of the possible impacts to wildlife populations in the area.

“The piecemeal environmental impact review measures contemplated by the 2015 work plan are inadequate,” attorneys J. Devlan Geddes and Jeffrey J. Tierney wrote.

Opponents of the plan say there is little scientific evidence to back the claims of landowners and Department of Livestock Officials who say elk pose a serious risk transmitting brucellosis to domestic cattle.

“To adopt the proposed work plan as written, without first … requiring a comprehensive (Environmental Impact Statement), would be to abandon the environmental ethics and principles of scientific wildlife management which are fundamental part of the Montana ethos,” the attorneys wrote in their comments to the department.

Tierney said Thursday he couldn’t comment on the likelihood of another lawsuit after the vote.