By CHRIS MERRILL
Star-Tribune environment reporter
Wednesday, March 12, 2008 7:54 AM MDT
LANDER -- The death toll of elk that have contracted paralysis and died in the Red Rim area southwest of Rawlins continues to climb, and biologists are now trying to bait the herd away from the lichen that appears to be poisoning them.
As of Tuesday, 16 elk have suffered paralysis and died, prompting biologists to begin an experimental, emergency operation to bait the herd away from the material that is believe to be harmful to them.
Game and Fish staff struggled with extremely mucky conditions Tuesday, setting up a two-mile feed line intended to lure the elk to safety. But biologists said they won't know until today if their efforts were successful.
Four years ago, more than 300 animals from an 800-elk herd died in the Red Rim area after filling their stomachs with lichen. Game and Fish researchers later determined that an acid in the lichen can be toxic to elk, even though antelope have been known for decades to eat the same fare, with no ill effects.
The elk lost in the catastrophic 2004 die-off all suffered paralysis, said Greg Hiatt, a wildlife biologist with the Game and Fish Department.
The 16 elk that have died so far this year -- nearly evenly split between bulls and cows -- have exhibited the same symptoms that their 2004 predecessors did: They've lain down and have been unable to get back up again, said Erin Smith, a spokeswoman for the Game and Fish Department's Lander region.
"The animals are cognizant of what's going on around them, but they can't use their muscles," Smith said. "Some were found dead, but most have been euthanized."
The elk that were discovered dead showed evidence of having been immobilized for some time before perishing, Smith said.
There are 200 elk in the Red Rim area this year -- 75 percent less than in 2004, when 800 roamed the area. In less than a week, nearly 10 percent of the herd has perished.
"Obviously we've lost 16 animals in five days, so it is an emergency situation," Smith said. "It's a very devastating site. The first four we took to the lab had basically zero body fat. The good news is, they have seen a lot of elk out there (Tuesday) walking around and looking fine."
Although lab testing in 2004 determined that lichen was likely the primary cause of paralysis in the animals, other factors might play a role in the severity of the affliction, Smith said.
The elk tend to be in poorer body condition in the winter, which might make them more susceptible to the toxin than they would be at other times of the year.
Also, the relative level of toxicity in the lichen appears to vary from year to year and location to location, and perhaps even seasonally, Hiatt said.
This winter has been particularly tough on the elk in the Rawlins area, because the animals have had to deal with deep snowpack, large snow drifts and below-average temperatures for a long, sustained period of time, Smith said.
The Game and Fish Department Tuesday sent several biologists and field staff to the Red Rim area to install an experimental hay feed line, intended to draw the elk away from the lichen-rich areas.
Baiting elk is not an exact science, Smith said. Sometimes the animals respond the way the biologists want them to, but sometimes they get scared off.
"We've got the feed out, but we won't know until (today) if it worked," Smith said. "We're certainly going to try it - it's better than doing nothing."
She said while Game and Fish is generally opposed to feeding wildlife in these situations, field biologists decided they had no other options, chiefly because the elk are in no condition to be hazed.
This is the hardest time of year for the animals, and it's not uncommon for elk to starve at the end of the winter, Smith said, when they use up whatever fat remains on their frames from the previous fall. And because this winter has been exceptionally rough on the animals, the added stress of scaring them away would be counterproductive.
"This is the hardest time of the year for them. But the good thing is, there's a lot of warm weather down around Rawlins right now, and the land is opening up," Smith said. "We're pretty optimistic that the elk will move out of there soon."
Becky Daily, a Ph.D candidate at the Wyoming State Veterinary Laboratory, is continuing research on the lichen phenomenon, which Game and Fish biologists started in 2004.
Daily said results from the necropsies and subsequent tests of two of the first three elk that became paralyzed this year have been inconclusive so far.
In 2004, the elk's stomachs had been full of lichen, Daily said, but, this time around veterinarians have only found small amounts, and in only one of the elk. The samples were instead full of cactus, which should be a fairly nutritious food for the animals.
Two more elk were planned to be delivered to the state laboratory Tuesday, which will likely provide scientists with more information, she said.
"I'd like to take a look at these two elk before we say for sure what it is, or whether it's lichen," Daily said.
Environment reporter Chris Merrill can be reached at
chris.merrill@trib.com or at (307) 267-6722.
To email Len, click 
Linear Mode
