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.

We had one nice year and halfer succomb to this. It was brutal. State Biologist in Southern IL said he had not received as many calls as he was expecting. I was only the second call, but that was a few weeks ago. He led me to believe that a lot of rain would help too. But he told me also that it wasn't really new. He said every two or three years there is a recurrance of this, but it is especially prominent during drought type years. If I could figure out how to get the pics off my phone, I'd post them.

I hate to say it, but if the state won't really tackle the problem of too many deer, then mother nature will.

I agree, it's mother nature doing her thing, it's happened before a few years back.

The state does try to tackle the problem of too many deer. Bowhunters can take as many does as they want buying the proper permits......even NR bowhunters can buy antlerless tags very cheap.

The disease is not enhanced because of too many deer, its simply a disease having to do with drought conditions mixed with very prolonged hot weather.

This virus hit West central Indiana last year, and it hit pretty hard. We went from a "deer reduction zone" where you could take up to 8 antlerless deer and a buck. This year that limit was cut in half.......lost a lot of to blue tongue last year.

Coug,

The state tackles the problem half-heartedly. I've heard that this year they have implemented some additional changes. But until they do something like a 30 day gun hunting season or more promotion of off season culling, we are gonna be dealing with too many deer. And too many deer clustered around decreased numbers of watering holes during drought is not a good thing.

theres a major problem with too many does and too many little deer, cause everyone wants a 180+ buck and passes up the rest. I think they should limit the number of out of state tags into illinois like iowa and gear it back towards lowering the number instead of shoot 1 monster buck.

I live in MS and I found a 4 point while putting up my stand a couple weeks ago laying in a creek bottom that had this disease.

The odds of someone shooting a 180" class buck is like hitting the Mega Millions, yes we have big deer here in IL as well as in Iowa, Kansas. But we are not crawling with B&C deer like MOST out of staters think.