Blood tests from 11 wolves recently captured in Jackson Hole show none have contracted brucellosis, a federal biologist reported Friday.

Six of the wolves live and den on the National Elk Refuge where the average brucellosis infection rate of elk since 1980 has been approximately 28 percent. Four other wolves captured and released after testing live immediately adjacent to the refuge, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Mike Jimenez said.

Brucellosis is a bacteria that causes elk and cattle to abort and is considered a scourge by stockmen. It is the source of near-incurable undulant fever in humans and is the reason milk is pasteurized.

A bill in the Wyoming Legislature earlier this winter called for testing all captured or killed wolves for brucellosis. Wyoming lawmakers, largely opposed to the presence of wolves in the state, pushed the bill only through the Senate.

Veterinarians consider canids to be largely immune from contracting or spreading the bacteria.

Conservationists decried the bill as a scare tactic that would perpetuate myths about wolves.

Nevertheless, Jimenez said the hullabaloo led him to begin testing trapped and killed wolves for brucellosis, starting last summer.

“We’ve always done tests on wolves for diseases,” he said Friday. Mainly, they are for canine distemper and parvo virus.

Regarding brucellosis, he said: “From all the vets we’ve talked to, we didn’t think that was an issue.”

Jimenez began sending blood samples to a lab to test for the disease “just because everybody started bringing it up,” he said. “It’s not that big deal to test for it.”

The hypothesis wolves might contract brucellosis eating an elk infected with the disease and spread it to other elk or cattle is “fairly easy to test,” Jimenez said. “We’re trying to use good science ... to help people understand.”

Veterinarians have said it would be rare for a wolf or dog to contract Brucellosis abortus or the rare Brucellosis canis although it is possible to infect an animal under laboratory conditions, Jimenez said. Veterinarians also say a wolf would be a “dead-end host” that would not spread the disease.

Even on the heavily infected refuge, resident wolves have not contracted brucellosis, the blood tests show.

“If there’s ever a place where wolves would have the chance for eating brucellosis-infected elk, this would be it.” Jimenez said.

In addition to the 11 wolves recently tested, blood from about another dozen or so wolves were sent for screening starting last summer. Those, from across the state, all returned with negative results.

“Wolves are not a player in the transmission of brucellosis, according to all the vets we’ve talked to,” Jimenez said. Testing will continue with results routinely shared with Wyoming Game and Fish.