Epizootic hemorrhagic disease

[Broken Arrow 1]

Anyone seeing any drastic decline in whitetail population due to this disease? I was reading the paper this morning and ran across it first I have heard of it.

[Bakes168]

It's killing a few deer in Southern Michigan every year.

[koger]

We had a major kill off here in KY 4 years ago, deer population is just now rebounding, shoulb be a great year this year.

[owlbait]

It is not contagious. Passed through the bite of a midge. Tends to be very localized around water sources.

[Dave Pagel]

It can be devastating in localized areas.  My understanding is that it is normally contracted when grazing in fields, but since the internal bleedign dehydrates the deer they are often found around a water source.  My brother and I owned a small piece of ground in the Bighorn Basin in Wyoming.  EHD killed over 80% of our deer one year.  The rancher next door found 12 whitetail bucks dead around one of his ponds.  It took 4-5 years for the herd to rebound.

We now have it in some southern Michigan counties including the one my camp is in.  I am concerned to say the least after my last experience with it.

D.P.

[owlbait]

According to my limited research the midge populations may be higher near water sources and once infected the deer actually try to reduce their body temperature in the water. Bad news all the way around but the first frosts seem to end the cycle.

[Hill Hunter]

I saw it hit southern Ill and Southern Ohio on different years, close to 50% kill in both areas. it was hard to ride with the windows down because of the smell.

[mark land]

Form reports I am getting some are being found in IL, sure hope it is isolated and does not get down south or back into KY again.

[buckeye_hunter]

Originally posted by Hill Hunter:
I saw it hit southern Ill and Southern Ohio on different years, close to 50% kill in both areas. it was hard to ride with the windows down because of the smell.

Yup. Hit us hard a while ago, especially in SE Ohio. I'm not sure that Wayne national recovered yet. I have buddies that gun hunt and put on drives down there. They haven't seen or killed squat sine that hit 4 years ago. I m talking large groups of guys gun hunting that live there and know the area well. They only push a few deer now with maybe one or two shot in the course of multiple days. The poaching and coyotes aren't helping either. Maybe with this last mild winter the numbers will be better this fall? The EHD certainly took its toll.

[wapiti792]

We have it here now...know of 3 different big bucks and several does already found in my county. I spoke with DNR official and it's pretty widespread this year. If you are finding them dead contact the DNR so that they can get their figures together. We got hit 4 years ago bad. Now this...just hope we get an early frost!

[Slickhead]

Killed a lot in the Milk River area Montana.
On Michael waffle houses show he showed the effects.
It was like someone dropped a bomb. An area where hundreds of deer would feed in an evening you may see 2.
It was sad to see.

[John Scifres]

Killed off 40% of the deer in Parke COunty IN in 2008.  It was a rough couple years but the deer will come back if the food is good.  We have it in neighboring Putnam County this year.

[Ryan Rothhaar]

Yup, getting hammered hard right now in Putnam county, Indiana.  We had a real bad die off in 2008 too - at least 50% of the deer locally, and it is back this year bigtime.  I found 3 the other day in one draw of a woods I hunt, my neighbor here just found 2 in his pond, and I talked with a guy that found 7 in one draw of his woods last week.  We are no where near rebounded from a combination of the kill off in 2008, coupled with the high doe tag sale in this county, and now this.  Its gonna be a rough few years around here.  From guys I know out west that have dealt with EHD/bluetongue for decades they say expect about 8 years for things to come back to normal.

The Indiana DNR put out an article in the local paper a couple weeks ago that said the deer population will rebound in 2 years.....they also said, in the same article, that the extreme drought is a good thing for fishermen because fish are easier to catch since the lakes are smaller now....no joke!  That's what we're dealing with here!

Ryan

[Hill Hunter]

Our herd numbers are still down but quality is up to where it was 20 years ago and buck doe ratio is great.
all in all it is a good thing, just painful to go through.

[AWPForester]

Pocahontas County WV had a big deer kill due to it about 8-10 years ago.  Decimated the herd.  It has rebound well but it sure makes hunting a particular spot hard after it's effects.  God Bless

[Broken Arrow 1]

Thanks for all the feed back I felt so out of the loop on this subject! I've been reading a TON of literature on these diseases and have determined that it is a horrible death for the animals infected. Also I am trying to find a positive and realize this is natures way of thinning the herd to ultimately strengthen the deer herd. I went for a walk through my little patch of hunting timber this evening and found a dead doe and a dead buck in the creek. I knew something was out there dead because the smell was putrid as soon as I stepped out of my pickup.

[S C Mercer]

Our local deer herd here in Virginia was hit hard in the early 2000's.  I hunt a tightly controlled military base next to my home (55,000 acres) that has a team of biologists managing the natural resources on the property.  Their estimates that year were we lost nearly 40% of the herd.  Every water source around had dead deer in or near it.  Horrible to witness.  Tim Stamps,  the lead wildlife biologist here was talking to our hunting community at the base Rod & Gun club the following year and gave a presentation on EHD.  He explained how during drought years the deer will concentrate on the few remaining water sources which, coincidently, also contain the small midges, but in massive quantities,  that infect the deer with the disease.   Sort of like mosquitoes at small pools of standing water.  Unfortunately all the deer in the area must drink water and these small pools are the only thing available during drought  years so the disease runs rampant throughout the herd.  It takes years for the herd to recover from bad out breaks.  However, during the ensuing years we saw larger bodied animals killed, presumably from less competition for available food sources.     Also, the healthiest, strongest animals also seem to survive the disease some years as can be seen from inspecting their hooves after killing them during the regular deer season.  Their hooves apparently rot off because of the disease and grow back during recovery and can clearly be seen duing the after kill deer check in process by the biologists.  ~Steve

[S C Mercer]

Our local deer herd here in Virginia was hit hard in the early 2000's.  I hunt a tightly controlled military base next to my home (55,000 acres) that has a team of biologists managing the natural resources on the property.  Their estimates that year were we lost nearly 40% of the herd.  Every water source around had dead deer in or near it.  Horrible to witness.  Tim Stamps,  the lead wildlife biologist here was talking to our hunting community at the base Rod & Gun club the following year and gave a presentation on EHD.  He explained how during drought years the deer will concentrate on the few remaining water sources which, coincidently, also contain the small midges, but in massive quantities,  that infect the deer with the disease.   Sort of like mosquitoes at small pools of standing water.  Unfortunately all the deer in the area must drink water and these small pools are the only thing available during drought  years so the disease runs rampant throughout the herd.  It takes years for the herd to recover from bad out breaks.  However, during the ensuing years we saw larger bodied animals killed, presumably from less competition for available food sources.     Also, the healthiest, strongest animals also seem to survive the disease some years as can be seen from inspecting their hooves after killing them during the regular deer season.  Their hooves apparently rot off because of the disease and grow back during recovery and can clearly be seen duing the after kill deer check in process by the biologists.  ~Steve

[Dave Pagel]

There is a good article in the Whitetails Unlimited magazine this quarter.

D.P.