LANDER - Elk continue to suffer paralysis in a snow-covered meadow near Rawlins, dropping to the ground, alert, but powerless to ever get up again.

As Wyoming Game and Fish Department personnel enter the second week of an experimental hay-line baiting program, 48 animals have died in the Red Rim area so far, probably from eating lichen.

Four years ago, more than 300 elk of an 800-animal herd died in the same location southwest of Rawlins, and scientific trials shortly after the die-off showed that lichen was the culprit.

Last week, after elk again started suffering paralysis, Game and Fish set up a hay line to bait this year's herd of about 300 elk away from the area's lichen.

The Game and Fish staff has had only "mixed success" so far, a department spokeswoman said Monday, as the elk have found the bait line but have yet to follow it south, to safety.

In the meantime, animals that have been exposed to the toxin have continued to drop to the ground from its effects.

Laboratory and veterinary personnel, along with a large contingent of Game and Fish personnel, were on site Monday attempting to collect more information about the ongoing die-off. In 2004, the paralyzed elk had stomachs full of the lichen, and it appeared they weren't eating much else. This time around lichen is present in their bellies, but only in small amounts, and the majority of the animal's intake has been more nutritious fare, such as cactus and grass.

"There's food for them down in Rawlins; it's not that they're starving," said Erin Smith, spokeswoman for the department's Lander region. "There was quite a bit of late-summer rain, so there's grass there. Their stomachs are by no means full of lichen. They just seem to be taking some of it up with the grass."

Smith said it appears, at least in preliminary investigation, that the animals might be eating the lichen inadvertently this time.

"It probably is lichen (causing the affliction), but we have to work as thoroughly as we can to make sure we're not misdiagnosing," she said.

Warmer weather has opened up country to the south of Red Rim, but the elk have not yet moved out, Smith said.

Environment reporter Chris Merrill can be reached at chris.merrill@trib.com or at (307) 267-6722.