Here's more bad news for our deer herd. Read it thru and then I guess all we can do is hope and pray for an early and heavy frost.

From the Southern Illinoisan.......

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The Associated Press SPRINGFIELD - A gnat-borne virus that often kills white-tailed deer but poses no risk to people has resurfaced in Illinois, state officials said Friday.

Epizootic hemorrhagic disease, which causes high fever and severe internal bleeding, has been confirmed in captive deer herds in southern Illinois' Franklin and Randolph counties, Illinois agriculture and natural resources officials said in a statement.

The first deaths in Illinois were reported late last month, when one Franklin County farm lost 16 of its 20 deer. The virus also is suspected in deaths of wild deer in at least 28 central and southern Illinois counties.

Other animals such as elk, mule deer, pronghorn antelope and bighorn sheep are vulnerable. Domestic animals such as livestock may become infected but seldom are seriously affected.

There is no vaccine or effective treatment for the disease.

"Short of spraying for insects, there's nothing much a landowner can do to prevent the disease other than wait for cold weather," said Colleen O'Keefe, the state Agriculture Department's division manager of food safety and animal protection.

The disease was first identified in 1955, when several hundred white-tailed deer died in Michigan and New Jersey. Since then, cases have been documented throughout the United States and southern Canada. Illinois' last significant outbreak was in 2004, though a few cases are observed in any given year.

Outbreaks of the disease typically begin in late summer or early fall and end with an insect-killing frost. Officials suspect that the dry summer in central and southern Illinois contributed to the current outbreak, drying up shallow ponds and creek beds to make fertile conditions for disease-carrying insects.

Symptoms of the infection develop about seven days after exposure and include loss of appetite, excessive salivation, muscle weakness, lameness, depression and rapid pulse and respiration. In very acute cases, animals enter a "shock-like" state, become prostrate and die within eight to 36 hours after the onset of symptoms.

Farmers with ill deer should not assume the animals are infected with the disease, even if they show symptoms, and should call a veterinarian to examine the animal, officials said.

If an animal dies, the state Department of Agriculture's animal disease laboratories in Centralia and Galesburg will examine the carcass to pinpoint the cause of death, for a cost of $40 to $100.