Feds provide peek at National Elk Refuge plan: Keep feeding bison, cut off elk at 7% CWD

There’s no saying what exactly the National Elk Refuge will propose when it rolls out its long-awaited plan detailing how it will handle a deadly disease forecasted to drastically reduce Jackson Hole elk populations, crushing hunting opportunities in the process.

But a new scientific analysis by the U.S. Geological Survey provides a first glimpse of likely components in the refuge’s “preferred” option for dealing with chronic wasting disease on a 25,000-acre federal property where thousands of elk have been fed and unnaturally bunched up since 1912. Specifically, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service may roll out a proposal that calls for perpetual feeding of the Jackson Bison Herd, a species that’s immune to CWD. For the Jackson Elk Herd, meanwhile, feeding would continue until rates of alw