Elk Refuge feeding triggers new lawsuit

Environmental groups are suing the National Elk Refuge for business-as-usual elk feeding and failing to implement a 12-year-old plan. The environmental law firm Earthjustice — which has sued over Elk Refuge feeding before — filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on behalf of the National Wildlife Refuge Association, Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club. The suit claims “severe disease threats” and focuses on anticipated effects from chronic wasting disease, a lethal and incurable cervid sickness that showed up not far from the refuge boundary last fall.Earthjustice’s lawsuit asks a judge to force the Elk Refuge’s hand, by giving it 30 days to produce a detailed plan to reduce elk feeding.The refuge completed an environmental impact statement in 2007 that prescribed management for the Jackson elk and bison herds jointly with Grand Teton National Park and the Bridger-Teton National Forest. A central component of the plan was to winnow wapiti wintering on the refuge down to 5,000 animals — a number that natural forage could sustain in a winter of average severity, models predicted.