Description: Brucellosis is a contagious disease that has been known to exist since the 19th Century. The disease affects humans, cattle, elk, and bison. Brucellosis has been eradicated from most of the United States but still exists in elk and wild bison in the Greater Yellowstone Area, which includes northwest Wyoming. When brucellosis infects domestic cattle, costly testing restrictions can be imposed on cattle producers throughout an entire state. For this and a variety of other reasons, Wyoming is working hard t
Brucellosis is a contagious disease that has been known to exist since the 19th Century. The disease affects humans, cattle, elk, and bison. Brucellosis has been eradicated from most of the United States but still exists in elk and wild bison in the Greater Yellowstone Area, which includes northwest Wyoming. When brucellosis infects domestic cattle, costly testing restrictions can be imposed on cattle producers throughout an entire state. For this and a variety of other reasons, Wyoming is working hard
In 2004, Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal created the Wyoming Brucellosis Coordination Team to chart a course for brucellosis management in the future. The team presented the governor with 28 recommendations for actions to help manage and control the disease in elk, wild bison, and cattle. Today, many of those actions are being implemented, and the combined efforts of agencies, landowners, and others are bringing measurable success in the battle against this stubborn disease.
Brucellosis is a highly contagious bacterial disease of both animals and humans that has been recognized since the nineteenth century. A cooperative state-federal brucellosis eradication program has existed for more than seventy years because of the disease’s economic impact on cattle ranchers and because it can be a serious human disease. This program has nearly eliminated brucellosis in domestic livestock, but the disease still exists in free-ranging elk and bison in the greater Yellowstone area, i