Managing Human-Wildlife Interactions: Ecological and Financial Assessment of Elk Feedground Closure in Teton County

Teton County in Western Wyoming is home to large working landscapes, a national park, and the nation’s largest elk herd, the Jackson herd. It is also one of the few places in the Western United States that still operates elk feedgrounds, where the artificial feeding of these large mammals has resulted in high density populations over small areas, leading to increased disease transmission and prevalence. A disease of primary concern is brucellosis (Brucella abortus) which can be transmitted from elk to cattle and result in financial burdens for ranchers through quarantine, depopulation, reduced milk production, or calf abortions. This project aimed to better understand the complex social and ecological dynamics of elk feedgrounds in order to assess the feasibility of implementing financial tools that would mitigate the effects of disease transmission and wildlife presence risks of a simulated feedground closure. Our goal is to help improve human-wildlife coexistence on Wyoming’s private and public lands. To accomplish this, we completed a Public Comment Sentiment Analysis, a Jackson Herd Habitat Connectivity Model, a Brucellosis Transmission Risk Model, and an Analysis of Financial Repercussions of Feedground Closure. These methods resulted in the assessment of two financial tools, a brucellosis compensation fund and an elk rent program, which we recommend to be implemented in Teton County. This project will serve to better inform the Property and Environment Research Center on potential methods for improving human-wildlife interactions and coexistence in Teton County through the understanding of where elk move on private lands, transmission of disease from elk to cattle, and the impacts that the cessation of feeding could cause on subsequent stakeholders, specifically the financial implications for ranchers.

Methods
From the larger project, this dataset primarily contains the data and metadata associated with the habitat connectivity model and the forage competition calculations. For additional data, metadata, and code associated with the other parts of the project, see the linked GitHub repository under "Related Works." More detailed methods can be found in the main report, also linked here. 

The main objective of creating a habitat connectivity model for the Jackson herd was to understand where the elk might disperse across the landscape if feeding on the National Elk Refuge (NER) ceases. This informed multiple aspects of our project, such as areas of potential overlap of elk and cattle for the brucellosis risk transmission model and locations of forage competition for the financial analysis. Analyzing where elk may relocate highlights places of management priority, particularly areas where conservation can be improved and stakeholder costs and human-wildlife conflict can be mitigated. To build habitat connectivity models for the Jackson herd, we created resistance rasters, which are a combination of multiple data layers that are important to elk biology with assigned values of resistance, or the cost of traversing each pixel of the landscape. The resistance rasters consisted of roads (including primary, secondary, trails, service drives, and private roads), conservation easements (ranked based on protection level), protected areas (also ranked based on protection level), oil and gas fields and wells, grazing allotments, elevation, and land use (vegetation and waterways as well as human development). The habitat connectivity resistance rasters were composed of layers built from 2011-2024. These raster layers were selected based on expert consultation of what most influences elk movement and biology as well as previous studies that have modeled movement for similar species like mule deer or for elk in different parts of the country. Similarly, resistance values were selected based on how the herd will utilize the land in winter conditions and were further informed by previous literature, expert opinion, or a combination of the two. 

After resistance rasters were created, they were used to analyze how elk movement would change due to the simulated cease of feeding on the NER during winter conditions. By using the Circuitscape Linkage Mapper tool in the Linkage Pathways toolbox within ArcGIS Pro, we analyzed the least-cost paths that elk will take to move from multiple elk crucial ranges to new habitats. In addition, the Pinchpoint Mapper tool identified areas of increased resistance that elk may face due to changes in the landscape.

Results from the habitat connectivity model were used to calculate forage competition costs (the costs of hay consumed by elk from haystacks found on private land during the winter months) for ranches in Teton County under a simulated feedground closure scenario. Pinchpoints from the high resistance simulation were used to identify three different types of elk winter habitat: prime, average, and subpar. Identifying those habitat types allowed us to predict where the elk are most likely to migrate and how much of their winter range includes private land.