Category Archives: deer

New EHD Outbreaks and Other EHD News

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Epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD) has been reported in Missouri and Wisconsin.

Find more information about the situation in Missouri through the Missouri Department of Conservation press release, here. In Wisconsin, the cause of death of 31 deer has not been confirmed, but EHD is suspected. If it is EHD, it will be the first outbreak since 2002 says the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Read the blog in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, here.

In South Dakota, the EHD outbreak has been severe enough to curtail deer hunting licenses, according to the Mitchell Daily Republic. South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department is removing all the unsold hunting licenses from several of the state’s hunting units and is offering refunds to hunters who would like to voluntarily turn in their licenses. Read the whole story in the Mitchell Daily Republic.

Map: Antlered deer harvest in South Dakota in 2010. Darker color is higher number of antlered deer per 100 square miles. Courtesy South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks.

Deer Disease News

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The most recently Wildlife Health Bulletin from US Geological Survey’s National Wildlife Health Center includes a list of resources for hemorrhagic disease, including epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD) and bluetonge virus.

The bulletin is a two-page long PDF, but includes links to reports and news briefs as well as contact information for relevant personnel at the National Wildlife Health Center.

Find the bulletin here.

In Delaware, citizens, and particularly hunters, are being asked to report any dead deer that have signs of EHD or show no apparant sign of death. The Delaware Division of Fish & Wildlife hopes to track where the outbreaks are occurring in the state.

Read the Delaware Natural Resources and Environmental Control press release, here.

Photo: A healthy white-tailed deer, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife.

Cervid Disease Update

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Add New Jersey and South Dakota to the list of states reporting an epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD) outbreak in white-tailed deer this year. Find more info here:

New Jersey
South Dakota

Bluetongue has been reported in Missouri by CBS News. Bluetongue is another virus closely related to EHD, and is also spread by midges, a biting insect. However, some say that only cattle get bluetongue. Others say deer do too, but very rarely.

In Nebraska, the state veterinarian is saying that cattle in the state are getting EHD, which again is considered to be a rare occurrence. He is seeking more information from cattle owners whose animals are experiencing EHD symptoms (which are virtually identical to bluetongue symptoms, which is common in cattle). Read the press release here.

In Washington, hunters have been finding limping elk with deformed hooves since the 1990s. Now the disease is spreading, and Oregon Public Broadcasting has the story.

Finally, in Texas, officials had set up a containment zone when chronic wasting disease (CWD) was detected in deer on the border with New Mexico. However, the latest news from the San Angelo Standard-Times says that the new rules will be delayed until the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission on November 7-8. According to the Austin Statesman, that’s after the archery season and a few days after the start of the standard deer season.

The Austin Statesman article has the most detail. Read it here.
The Standard-Times article is a re-print of the Texas Parks and Wildlife press release. Read the press release here.
An Outdoor Life blog also had a few words to say about the restrictions, putting them in national context. Read that here.

 

CWD Hunting Season Too “Confusing” For Wisc.

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The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources wants a four-day antlerless deer hunt as part of its strategy against Chronic Wasting Disease. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has cancelled that hunt, reports the Pierce County Herald, saying that he is bowing to the wishes of the state’s hunters, who found the extra deer hunting season confusing and felt it took the fun out of the November season.

Read the very short piece in the Pierce County Herald.

Of course, Governor Walker has already made what he thinks of his state’s employees abundantly clear. Why hunters who don’t like the added season can’t simply not participate in it is not as clear.

Photo: Michigan does, courtesy US Fish and Wildlife

Research Round-up

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Earlier this summer, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation wildlife biologists banded 15 peregrine falcon chicks from five nests in western New York State. The birds are part of the growing peregrine population in the state.

Read the NYS DEC press release here.

The California Department of Fish and Game recently caught and captured 10 female deer as part of a study of habitat usage along I-280 in the San Francisco region. The information collected is part of an 18-month study that will allow scientists suggest ways to keep deer off the busy roadway.

Read the California DFG press release here.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that a recent sampling did not find Asian carp in western Lake Erie. A week of electrofishing and gill-netting did not turn up Asian carp. The survey was conducted because last summer, DNA samples revealed the presence of the invasive carp.

Read a press release from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources here.

The Bend (Ore.) Bulletin reports that wildlife biologists will set out camera traps in the Cascade mountains hoping to catch a glimpse of wolverines, which are listed as threatened in the state.

Read the article in the Bend Bulletin here.

Photo: Wildlife Biologists process a sedated deer for the I-280 deer study courtesy of California Department of Fish and Game

Op-Ed Asks for Fewer Deer

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Even if it runs on a Saturday, the least-read newspaper of the week, an op-ed in The New York Times can raise awareness and spur debate. For that reason, you should know about an op-ed that ran last week that makes the case for white-tailed deer overpopulation in the Northeast.

The solution, says the author, Daniel Cristol, a professor of biology at the College of William and Mary, is to stop managing forests for deer.

The focus of the piece is mostly on making the case for deer overpopulation, there is absolutely no information in the piece of the many things that we, as a society, and as state wildlife departments do to manage for the benefit of deer. But the piece is worth knowing about.

Read “Why Bambi Must Go,” NY Times op-ed, here.

Tool: Infrared Monitoring

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Thermal image of wolf with a spot mimicing mangeIn a recent study on the origins of the fungus that causes white nose syndrome in bats, the bats in the study were monitored with infrared cameras. This allowed the researchers to see when the bats were rousing (they need to warm up first).

Read a mention of the infrared monitoring in this Associated Press story on the Yahoo News site.
You can also find the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper here, but you need a subscription or to pay a fee to read the whole paper.

A more common use for infrared imaging has been for wildlife surveys. For example, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency has used thermal imaging to survey the ratio of bucks to does and does to fawns for deer management. But this technology can do more.

Scientists are using infrared thermal imaging cameras to detect sarcoptic mange in Yellowstone wolves. The patches of bare skin caused this form of scabies stress the animal because the calories used up to compensate for the heat loss can doom the animal.

Read an article on an early stage of the study in the Billings Gazette.
Read information from the US Geological Survey, here.
And a tip of the hat to Wired Magazine, which dedicated a full page to the story in its May 2012 issue. (Sorry, no direct link because the May issue wasn’t online when this was posted.)

While the Billings Gazette article describes the scientists renting a $40,000 camera, in the Wired Magazine update, $4,000-$5,000 per camera is the price mentioned. There seem to be a lot of possibilities for using infrared thermal imaging in wildlife management that go beyond surveys.

Photo: Thermal image of a wolf with a small bald spot on its rear leg, from the initial test of concept. Courtesy of the US Geological Survey.

Chronic Wasting Disease Update

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CWD risk in Ontario

Three more cases of chronic wasting disease (CWD) were confirmed in wild white-tailed deer in Missouri last week. These deer had been killed within two miles of the free-ranging deer found to have CWD last fall.

Read the Missouri Department of Conservation press release, here.

The situation in Virginia is similar. “Two new cases of chronic wasting disease (CWD) have been detected very close to where CWD-infected deer were found in 2009 and 2010,” the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries press release says.

CWD has been found in mule deer in New Mexico for 10 years, but this year it was detected in deer not far from El Paso, Texas, which has the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department on alert. Read an article about this in the Lonestar Outdoor News.

There’s no CWD in Ontario, Canada yet, but they are keeping an eye out for it, since it has been found in the neighboring US states of New York, Minnesota and Michigan. The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources recently released a seven-page report about its surveillance program. (Be forewarned, that link will pop up a sizable PDF.)

March Roundup of New Research

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Spring is here and a bunch of wildlife surveys are underway around the country.

In Delaware:
-It’s the fifth and final year of the Delaware Breeding Bird Atlas.
-A special effort is being made in 2012 to tally owls as part of the atlas.
–Horseshoe crabs are being tallied again, and volunteers are being trained.
-The annual osprey count is offering a volunteer training for the first time since 2007.

Maryland is two years in to four years of surveys for an amphibian and reptile atlas and is looking for volunteers.

In Kansas, they are searching for lesser prairie chicken breeding areas, or leks, from the air with helicopters. Field crews will train on March 29-31 and conduct official survey work across all of western Kansas until the middle of May. The Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism is also asking people to report leks. The survey is part of a five-state effort, and the survey technique will be evaluated.

In North Dakota, the Game and Fish Department has launched a two-year study of white-tailed deer in intensely farmed agricultural areas.

In Maine, biologists at the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife have visited up to 100 dens each winter for 37 years, making the survey in the nation’s oldest radio-collar monitoring program for bears. This year the Maine Sunday Telegram wrote a story about it, with lots of pics. Read it here.

And in Washington, commuters have been reporting wildlife sightings for over a year on the I-90 corridor in anticipation of road improvements. The project’s first annual report was released recently, generating articles in the Everett Herald  and The Seattle Times, and coverage other media.

Photo of I-90 Wildlife Watch billboard by Paula MacKay/Western Transportation Institute, used by permission.

Mystery of the “Cactus Bucks”

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For ten years hunters and residents of western Colorado, near the north fork of the Gunnison River have been reporting mule deer with strange antlers to the Colorado Division of Wildlife. A Colorado Division of Wildlife press release says: “In these male animals the antlers grow in odd shapes, never develop fully and do not lose their velvet.”

These mule deer with the fuzzy, misshapen antlers have been called “cactus bucks.”

The cause of the deformity is a mystery, although division biologists believe that hemorrhagic disease is to blame.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologists recently collared eight infected animals and will follow them to see whether they shed their “cactus” antlers or grow new, normally developed ones in the future.

Read the Colorado Parks and Wildlife press release here. (So far news outlets have just reprinted the press release.)

In other cervid disease news: Three wild deer have tested positive for bovine tuberculosis in Michigan (at the top of the mitten’s index finger), according to an article in USA Today. Humans are not at risk, according to the State of Michigan’s emerging disease information. However, wild deer populations are at risk, as is the status of the region’s livestock, which may face greater regulations.

Read the story in USA Today, here.
The Michigan emerging disease info on bovine TB is here.

Photo: Kyle Banks, district wildlife manager for Colorado Parks and Wildlife in the Hotchkiss area, holds one of the “cactus bucks” collared in January 2012 as part of a five-year study. Courtesy of Colorado Parks and Wildlife.