Brucellosis in Wolves?

 As if wolves don’t have enough of a PR problem, there have been recent articles suggesting they may carry brucellosis. Idaho State veterinarian, Dr. Bill Barton.

 “Wyoming has legislation before their legislature to pursue and fund research into whether or not wolves have the capacity and ability and actually could carry and transmit brucellosis to cattle. Not much research done on the topic, some research from S. Korea showed that dogs could be infected with it and may have transferred it to cattle, but just not much research on the table available so Wyoming has proposed that they fund a research project to determine if wolves in the greater Yellowstone area in particular could transmit brucellosis to cattle from the wild elk and bison populations. They certainly are going to feed on the potentially aborted fetuses from infected elk or bison. Could they become infected and could they transmit that to cattle? We don’t know. There are those that consider that should the wolf become infected with it that they would be a dead-end host, they wouldn’t transmit it but the research is lacking to call it either way.”