Supplemental winter feeding programs for elk and deer may appear beneficial but create welfare risks through disease transmission, artificial density, and dependency that undermine long-term population health.
Supplemental elk feeding was introduced primarily to reduce livestock conflict and hunting mortality, not for animal welfare reasons. But its welfare effects are mixed: individual animals survive winters they might not otherwise, but at the cost of disease exposure, loss of natural foraging behavior, and long-term population health risks from pathogen amplification. Chronic wasting disease transmission at artificial feeding sites is a serious welfare concern — the disease causes progressive neurological deterioration and invariably fatal outcomes. The most welfare-positive long-term strategy is habitat restoration that allows elk to survive naturally without artificial concentration.