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Wyoming’s 2026 Hunt Forecast: CWD Hits the Elk Refuge
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JACKSON, WY — Wyoming Game and Fish just dropped its 2026 hunting forecast, and buried in the usual mix of herd counts and quota talk is a first for this valley: the National Elk Refuge has its first-ever confirmed cases of chronic wasting disease.
Everything else in the forecast is the kind of steady-as-she-goes update you’d expect from a state agency that’s been managing these herds for decades. This part isn’t.
What Game and Fish Says It’s Doing
WGFD released forecasts for eight regions across the state — Casper, Cody, Green River, Jackson, Lander, Laramie, Pinedale and Sheridan — built on field data and observations from biologists and game wardens. The Jackson region’s forecast covers mule deer, elk, moose, bighorn sheep, mountain goats and wild bison. Notably absent: any guidance on pronghorn this year.
The agency is asking hunters to do the basics — review the 2026 regulations, submit deer and elk samples for CWD testing, carry the required stamps and licenses, and behave on public and private land like someone who wants to keep hunting it next year.
In plain English: same rules, more paperwork, and one new disease case that changes how careful you need to be with a knife.
What The Forecast Actually Covers
Deer: Local mule deer herds migrate out of the Jackson region for winter, and fawn and buck ratios have been strong the past two years. The herds are still climbing back from the brutal 2022-2023 winter — a stretch we’ve covered before as the kind of season that reshuffles everything from herd counts to real estate closings. The Sublette herd is nearing its population objective, with the Wyoming Range herd close behind. Antler restrictions and updated nonresident boundaries apply — read the fine print before you buy a tag.
Elk: Populations remain strong, and hunters can expect relatively stable opportunities. The catch is the CWD news out of the refuge. WGFD wants hunters wearing latex or rubber gloves while field dressing, minimizing contact with brain, spinal cord, and lymph tissue, and disinfecting tools afterward. Test results take up to three weeks, so if you want to eat what you shoot, the safe move is quartering and freezing it until the lab calls back. The CDC still recommends against eating meat from CWD-positive animals.
Moose: Opportunities stay limited while the state keeps an eye on herd numbers, though bull ratios are high. New this year: mandatory tooth submission in Hunt Areas 16 and 37, which gives biologists a clearer picture of the age structure of harvested bulls.
Bighorn sheep and mountain goats: Sheep hunting is described as excellent overall, with Hunt Area 7 standing out, abundant mature rams and a 90% hunter success rate in 2025. Hunt Area 6 is under tighter quotas, and the agency expects ewe harvest to matter for keeping pneumonia in check. Mountain goat quotas remain low; numbers have stabilized since a 2020 dip but haven’t rebounded, though trophy billies are still out there.
Bison: Jackson’s wild bison herd is running at the high end of its population objective, with strong cow and calf numbers pointing to continued growth. But bison are only legal to harvest when they wander onto the National Elk Refuge, Bridger-Teton National Forest, or specific private parcels, so success depends less on skill than on whether the animals feel like cooperating.
Why This Matters Here
Hunting in this valley isn’t a hobby tucked into a weekend. For a lot of Teton County families, a fall elk or deer is what fills the freezer through a winter that, as anyone who’s lived through one knows, doesn’t ask permission before showing up. This isn’t a valley where you casually shrug off a disease showing up on the one piece of public land elk are guaranteed to gather on every winter.
The National Elk Refuge sits right at the edge of town, feeding thousands of elk through the coldest months. It’s also ground zero for exactly the kind of nose-to-tail contact that lets CWD spread. First-ever confirmed cases there isn’t a distant wildlife-management footnote — it’s a problem sitting a few miles from Town Square.
Meanwhile, the bighorn and mountain goat numbers are a reminder that Jackson’s wildlife story is never just one story. The same forecast that flags a new disease also reports a 90% hunter success rate on rams in Hunt Area 7. Good news and bad news share a press release out here, same as they share a landscape.
The Questions Worth Asking
How fast will WGFD share CWD prevalence data as more test results come back, and will hunters actually see it before opening day next year? Will mandatory tooth submission — currently limited to two moose hunt areas — expand to elk if the refuge cases turn out to be more than isolated? And with updated nonresident boundaries for deer, does local hunting access get any easier, or does it just shift who’s competing for the same tags?
None of these have answers yet. That’s the honest state of it.
The Bottom Line
Most of this year’s forecast is what you’d hope for: stable elk, recovering deer, strong sheep numbers, a bison herd that’s arguably doing too well. The real story is the one line about the refuge. Chronic wasting disease has been creeping toward Jackson for years, showing up in nearby herds before it ever touched this one. Now it’s here.
That doesn’t mean panic. It means gloves, patience with test results, and paying attention to what WGFD reports as the season goes on — the same wait-and-see instinct that’s kept this valley’s wildlife healthier than most for a long time. Full forecast is on WGFD’s site if you want the region-by-region detail before you finalize a hunt plan.
