jsay

Found this in another post. Looks like we need some cold weather very soon. This may get worse before it gets better.

"well, i'm officially disgusted. here in beaver county(hookstown area) there are deer turning up dead by the dozen because of that damn disease thing in greene and washington county's with the mites. nice bucks and big doe laying dead every few hundred yards. i've only seen 6 alive. that's very low for the area. it's all private and i keep close tabs on it. i hope a damn frost comes soon and wipes those buggers out. the proper authorities have been contacted."

Interested to hear what other guys are seeing in PA??

timbercruiser

What kind of mite/disease thing is it that is killing the deer???

Rebel Hog

[font="verdana,helvetica"]Impacts of White-Tailed Deer on the Ecology of Pennsylvania - Pennsylvania's white-tailed deer population, once decimated, is now over-abundant and damaging forest ecology by destroying tree and native wildflower species and habitat for wildlife. If the deer herd is not reduced, scientists fear large tracts of Pennsylvania's forests could be lost within 100 years. Ann Murray reports. (Golden Quill Award winner for best enterprise/investigative reporting) Aired week of 05/10/2006.

Rebel Hog

6.3.2 Ectoparasites

Ectoparasites are more of a threat to farmed deer than to wild ones, because in general, higher stocking rates are apt to result in higher parasite incidence.
Lice occur frequently on farmed deer. Lice could affect young animals and deer in poor conditions during winter, but so far no serious problems have been experienced. Ticks are often found on deer. Among the many species, Ixodes ricinus is most commonly recorded.
Keds (Lipoptena Cervi) have been observed on farmed deer in Scotland (Blaxter et al, 1974).
Mite (Demodex) species have been described from deer, but their importance is not yet known.
Warble flies may frequent deer in the wild to such and extent that hides can be rendered useless for leather production. Only in New Zealand, where warble flies do not occur, are skins not damaged. The throat warble fly, which occurs among red and roe deer, causes much irritation. Rates of infestation usually depend on stocking rates.
The headfly, Hydrotaea irritans, can affect food searching behaviour.

jsay

Press release from the Game Commission regarding EHD.

http://www.pasportsmenportal.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id= 495&Itemid=46

Rebel Hog

Thanks for that info, but it has nothing to do with Mites!


EHD is a wide spread disease among deer of America. A bite of insects called "biting midges" causes death within five to ten days. Fortunately, EHD is not infectious and it does not transfer from one deer to another. Biting Midge

Dr. Cottrel points out that EHD is a seasonal disease and affected deer will recover soon. The outbreak is expected to end with the onset of cold season killing insects. Game Commission will rely on the continuous vigilance of hunters and residents for timely reporting of deer herd infection cases. Any unusual sighting may be reported immediately to Game Commission Southwest Region director over phone number 724-238-9523.

Buck Magnet

This is about the biggest joke that I have seen! Honestly, the years of herd reduction have done a number and have got the numbers, at least everywhere around where I hunt, to well below the carrying capacity! Granted, 10 years ago we have a major issue and the deer were really over-numbered, but the herd reduction has fixed that problem and then some, but it just doesn't seem to stop. Its not even so much of a herd reduction as it is a slaughter of does. The buck to doe ratio was very bad, probably 15 or 20 doe to every buck, but from what I have seen scouting and my trail cameras (I have spent almost every day for the past 5 months straight in the woods, I have seen at least 3 times as many bucks as I have doe. It is so bad that we have stopped shooting doe on our properties last year. It helped out for this year, and maybe next season we will take a doe or two. My hunting properties are in prime whitetail country, TONS of food, acorns, alfalfa, clover, corn, soybeans, and cabbage fields everywhere for the deer to gorge themselves on, not a single sign of a "browse line", but yet the PGC is still claiming that we have "way too many deer". Ridiculous!

bristowboy_20

its killing a lot of deer here in southern indiana too, as well as northern kentucky.

hillbilly deluxe

same problem here in NJ. the NJ DEP just sent out a artilce about it.
go to http://www.njfishandwildlife.com/news/2007/ehd.htm

Steelcity

I am near the hookstown area and toward the border of west virginia where we were working the other day dead deer were lying everywhere, it was disgusting as a life long deer hunter because i have never seenanything like this, It is getting pretty bad as a friend of mine told me yesterdaythat a favorite spot of his is now off limits because they are finding deer lying and the farmer doesnt want to completely wipe out the herd near his land,


In response to the report of the deer herd being too large as it is i can only laugh, i have been hunting all of my life and own acamp near the allegheny forest and the fact is the deer herd is well diminished compared to5 10 or 20 years ago. We wouldgo spotting and have no problem seeing 300 deer in an hour or two, now we are lucky to see 70 or 80, The same is true around my home in beaver county, The fact that pennsylvania has more deerhunters than any other state probably has a lot to do about it, butcome hunt PA for as long as i have and tell me that this states deer population is too large, as for this mite thing it makes me sick