Northern Plains hit hard by deer-killing disease
 

I hunted for Northwestern SD for 15 -20 years earlier in my life.

When EHD came through one summer it decimated the heard. Back then they blamed it on high deer numbers which allowed the vector to jump from deer to deer.

I'm not sure they have recovered yet and that was 15 years ago.

That's a bad deal. That is really going to hurt some of the outfitters big time.

Wow.. sorry to hear that. That is really a bad deal for the entire area infected. And a shame to see the herd gone.

I found this out when bird hunting in ND this yr. The first area we hunted was hit hard with blue tongue disease. We found a dead deer in about every fence row we walked. Found one real nice 14 pt that was a real shame.

JW

This was in the newpaper here today. I hope the deer can overcome it.

Southern Illinois was hit hard by that about 4-5 years ago, maybe not that long? We spent a weekend down there in August moving some deer stands that year and the smell was just nasty. The whole woods stunk. I can't verify this but I heard there were 1000's of deer killed by this.

Five or six years ago northeast MO had a round of the disease. A MDC guy told me that it was centered in Pike Co. I think that I heard that it killed about 20% of the herd. I saw a doe back then during deer season drooling, I did not shoot her. On second thought, maybe I should have, she may have passed the disease on. That was in Ralls Co, next door to Pike. Since then the herd seems to have recovered, deer can come back from a 20% die-off fairly easily. Conditions for deer are probably tougher in the northern plains, they seem to be having a higher percentage die of the disease. When a deer has it, they want to drink water, maybe it is harder to find up there.

EHD is transmitted by a bug called a midge. We have about 4000 acres at our hunt club property and harvested 123 deer this year. Our property is located in Charlotte and Surry Counties, Virginia. We had three deer, one buck and two does that had EHD and all three survived! Not all deer die do to this disease. I was told that this occurs during a dry seasons. When we opened these deer up they looked perfect inside.

I hope it doesn't get any more then we have experienced here in Virginia.