An environmental group named the National Elk Refuge as one of the country’s ten most imperiled refuges Thursday, indicting the 20,000-acre property’s crowded feedlines for problems with disease and habitat degradation.

The group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility chose the top ten list from more than 540 refuges in all 50 states.

PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch said that many refuges on the top ten list, including those in Alaska, Hawaii and California, face threats from climate change. However, on the National Elk Refuge, politics are driving decisions that make the animal and plant life vulnerable.

“The concentration of that many animals with the disease vectors headed this way is alarming,” Ruch said, referring to chronic wasting disease, an always fatal pathogen that some say could devastate the Jackson Elk Herd if it makes its way to the region’s feedgrounds. “A lot of the decisions that need to be made are above the pay grade of the manager.”

The feeding, Ruch said, “becomes a reinforcing cycle that requires more and more artificial feeding.”

“It becomes a wildlife welfare crises because you’re not able to manage the population,” he said.

The report also calls attention to a staff shortage on the refuge.

“Currently, the refuge has just seven employees,” the report says. “The National Elk Refuge has no resources to undertake urgently needed management, research and education tasks.”

Comparing acre for acre, the country’s refuge system gets 17 cents for every dollar that the National Park Service receives, Ruch said.

“They’re dealing with these horrendous problems with a handful of people,” he said.

National Elk Refuge manager Steve Kallin agreed with many of the critiques in the report.

“I don’t disagree with the statement that there are threats to a healthy elk herd,” he said. “The herd has brucellosis, there’s no doubt about that, and certainly chronic wasting disease is a serious concern.”

Kallin also agreed that the refuge is understaffed.

“I can’t say that a bigger staff is going to prevent chronic wasting disease from coming, but there are a number of other opportunities and tasks that we’re just having a hard time getting to because of the lack of staff.”

One such opportunity is working with ranchers to prevent commingling of elk and cattle, a measure deemed crucial to preventing the spread of brucellosis to domestic livestock, Kallin said.