Things are looking Tough in Montana
 

For anyone looking at hunting in Eastern Montana, beware that we are having an extremely tough winter... Lots of snow and bitter cold with a lot of wind and it started in Mid -December and hasn't let up. We were -37 below here yesterday morning. Deer are living in the haystacks and shelterbelts where they can. We're going to have some winterkill. How much is hard to say. My concern is that in past years after a tough winter, EHD seems to be much more prevalent. I don't know if the deers' immune system is weakened after a hard winter or what, but more often than not we see a die off from EHD in late summer after a hard winter... I'm no biologist by any means...that's just what I've observed over the years....

I believe EHD is a result of a drought and the Midges infect the deer.

That is correct

I'm not so sure about that. We had a horrible drought this past summer...one of the worst on record and there was no EHD. We went weeks on end without a drop of rain. After the winter of 2012 (which was a bad one), we had a lot of flooding in the spring...lots of rain as well and EHD hit the deer hard. The F&G estimated we lost up to 75% of our whitetails that year, but I think that was a conservative estimate... I think we lost more. We have lots of drought years here... It's a very dry climate. Our annual precipitation is only around 13 inches, but EHD only seems to hit once every 8 to 10 years or so. It appears to be more related to the overall health of the deer herd. When populations get high, which often happens as access is very difficult on private land here, Mother Nature seems to take care of the overpopulation via EHD. But again..I'm no authority by any means...I'm just sharing what I've observed in the 40 years I've lived here.

EHD comes from a biting gnat that dwells in stagnant water holes.


It does not spread from deer to deer.

What happens here is it gets try and drives deer to these stagnant water holes where these gnats live.

Could be that where you live lots of flooding and rain enables the gnat to proliferate where it normally wouldn't I guess but in most cases it is absolutely brought on by drought.

I'm planning an antelope hunt in eastern wyoming this fall. Wondering if we should hold off a year, or go this year. Heard the weather has been rough there as well.

-Jake

Tatonka, I think you folks over in the Havre area have been hit especially hard this winter, I recall the early storm you had in Sept. i believe, the one that knocked down quite a few power poles and line. Over here in Glasgow, winter has been about normal really, we have had a few snows, last weeks storm was probably the biggest producer of snow here, having about 6-8 inches on the ground. But thankfully we have had a couple breaks in the weather to. As for EHD, Us in NE corner of Montana had record snows in the winter of 2010-11, followed by flooding in the spring, and then more flooding in the summer, thus adding to the standing water areas, basically a perfect storm for killing off the deer heard. We lost a significant percentage of deer that winter, but the worse was worst was yet to come with EHD. EHD is a miserable death to deer, no doubt about it, I had a friend who would check the irrigation gates and would find beautiful bucks, dead on the ground from EHD. With that terrible winter, then the flooding and propagation of the midges that spread EHD, we lost over 90% of our whitetail herd. No doubt winter will take a few animals, such is the way of life, one can only hope that spring and summer is good to those animals remaining.

I've read a considerable amount about EHD and Blue tongue as it hits here so often. Most everything I've read relates the outbreaks to drought and high midge populations. I have a little trouble buying the drought theory as the entire Milk River Valley is irrigated and there is substantial irrigation on the nearby creeks. We have standing water starting when they fill the irrigation canals (usually in mid May) until they shut off the irrigation (usually in September). Drought around here really only affects areas that are not irrigated (dry land grain fields, prairie/grazing land, etc.). Drought doesn't explain our outbreaks when the valley has basically the same amount of water in the ditches, sloughs, fields, etc. each year. There has to another explanation other than drought. We have midges every year (believe me!!!!), but deer do not get EHD every year...

At any rate, I hope it doesn't hit again this year. Our whitetails have just now recovered from the last outbreak a few years back... In some areas they're still recovering...

A little off topic, but maybe it is time to rethink game management somewhat. Here we have a nine month season for Buck and yearling. And a five month season Doe and Fawn.

A survey is done and a shooting plan (quota) is set. Pretty much a tag system. Every animal shot gets paperwork. The fines for cheating are so high, few cheat.

Sick animals get harvested quick because the season is so long, which limits the spread of disease. The hunters here are generally pretty darned responsible. Responsibility is an intensive part of the training.

Air surveys and ground surveys keep track of the game populations. There are even forced harvests for too large game populations in specific areas, the property or lease holder is responsible for full filling the quota. If you fail to harvest a quota, you pay a professional hunter to fill the quota.

Fairly radically different than the existing system in the U.S. with short intensive hunting seasons.

Not something you could implement in a year, modifying the existing system is a long term policy change. But in the long term may help with the feast-famine cycles of overpopulation and plague.

The old Iron Curtain had a firearms exclusion zone of two miles. The game was unmolested and over populated to the extreme. Whole forests were destroyed from bark eating. Disease was rampant. The uniformed and idealists think that nature has a balance, it does, but it is cycles of feast, famine and disease. What a mess, hundreds of Roe and Red Deer carcasses littering the mostly dead forest forest floor. The whole place stank of death.

Blue Tongue and EHD is rare here. Standing water is the norm, not the exception, we have a generally wet climate. We do get some dry periods, rarely longer than two months. The vectors are usually worse when we have a mild winter, a deep hard freeze seems to kill off a lot of the breeders.

EHD made it across the continental divide into western Montana (around Missoula) a couple of years ago. Prior to that, from what I've read they'd never seen it. Hundreds of deer died around the Missoula area. It's also started showing up in other states where it was previously not seen. Why? Who knows. It's shown up in Pennsylvania and Kentucky...two states that are really not prone to droughts of any duration. It's also shown up in many other eastern and midwestern states...

The other odd thing about EHD is that it can hit one section/area and wipe out out 80% to 90% of the deer, but 3 miles down the road it might not hit at all. I see this around here quite often. About 5 years ago it pretty much wiped out the whitetails on one section of a creek south of town. 5 or 6 miles further down the creek it didn't hit at all.. It's a strange disease and I really don't think the biologists have quite figured it out.

EHD also seems to target mature bucks more than any other age deer. Very strange indeed. One time in Illinois Champlain Islander and myself found a half dozen or so dead deer in a creek on the farm we were hunting.

Just supposition but if/when you find a large kill you might want to check out local Sheep herds.

We had no Blue tongue at all as far back as anybody could remember until a Sheep herder brought a flock of Sheep through our lease. There may or may not be an association, but I've never been a big believer in happenstance.

Is it possible domestic flocks or Cattle help transmit the disease to unaffected areas and/or more susceptible hosts like Whitetail?

Only two things I can think off to slow down the disease, is culling infected animals and spraying fly brood areas. The stock answer here is to seriously thin out the Deer herds for most kinds of disease and try to slow down the transmission cycle.

Many variations of EHD my thinking is it may be like the flu, constantly evolving.

Maybe one reason we have so few cases here is they spray for Mosquitoes intensively here. I imagine the same spray works on Midges. Maybe the Roe and Red Deer aren't as susceptible? Maybe it is because we rarely let the Deer herds over populate which slows down the Deer to fly to Deer cycle.?

Some parasites share hormones with the host and the hosts hormones are necessary for reproduction. Is it possible biting flies and blood suckers may have similarly evolved?

I'd say it has something to do with the behavior and/or requirements of mature bucks but it is definitely harder on mature bucks.

I'm sure big mature bucks require more water which leads to more exposure.

In my area EHD is very clearly related to drought.

Maybe the water drying up forces the larvae to pupate and turn into mature flies? They are kind of forced to mature all at once or nearly so and the fly density spikes?

They must have some sort of mechanism to survive winter, either the eggs, larvae or pupae must go dormant for long periods. I've seen the same with Maggots, if they run out of food they will pupate early (under size).

Maybe, Ive always been under the impression that drought just forces deer to use the stagnant water holes where these gnats are concentrated but there could be more to it than that.

The gnats like water, the deer need water, and there is very little water available = lots of interaction between deer and the gnats. Bigger deer need more water = even more exposure.

From what I understand, EHD causes the deer to bleed internally, which is why they are usually found near water when they die... The loss of blood causes extreme thirst. In regards to it hitting bucks the hardest, I've also read that antlers in velvet being full of blood are like a huge magnet for the gnats (midges). Bucks tend to lay pretty low when their antlers are in velvet and tend to stay in the low, damp areas were the midges are...they don't move around as much as the does and fawns.