Montana is known for its big industry on cattle. Approximately 2.6 million cows place Montana as the sixth largest state in terms of number of beef cattle. This industry provides more than $1 billion annual for producers in Montana, thing that makes it the largest component of agriculture.

At the time being, officials in Billings, Montana, are considering a solution to capture and kill infected elk in Yellowstone National Park, because of a brucellosis disease.

Government agencies have already killed nearly 6,000 wild bison leaving Yellowstone over the last two decades. They were believed to be sick of brucellosis, which causes pregnant cattle to abort their young.

Officials from Wyoming and Montana think elk as the cause of the infection and the pressure is to kill or capture more of the animals. They want to eliminate the disease, not just control it.

The ones who take care of the cattle don’t agree with killing the elk, considering that too much culling could shrink the herds. They think that it would be better for the wildlife managers to vaccinate the bison or eradicate the disease.

The problem with this solution would be that there is no effective brucellosis vaccine and cattle vaccines are only 70% effective. Especially that brucellosis appeared seven times this year in the same area.

Nearly $19 million has been spent on efforts to eradicate the disease, since 2002, but the disease won’t charge those efforts. Elk seem to move freely, unlike bison, which move in groups, so the first could spread the disease easier.