State officials say 12 Michigan counties are seeing a surge in cases of an often deadly disease that affects deer, but not humans.
Brent Rudolph is the deer, elk, and moose management specialist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.
"Epizootic hemorrhagic disease — we call it EHD because that's a lot easier to say — is transmitted by a midge, a small biting fly," Rudolph said. "When deer are exposed to this virus, they either recover, or they get a very high fever and internal bleeding and die, and that mortality can happen in just a couple of days from the exposure time."
Rudolph said hunters in some areas may come across not just one, but several dead deer that have died of EHD this fall. He said sometimes, the deer doesn't appear to have any sign of illness, and it can be alarming. But he stressed that people cannot get EHD, either from the deer, or from the midges.
"There's really not anything that can be done to control or manage EHD. The outbreaks happen and they're more severe when we experience weather patterns that are favorable for these insects," Rudolph said.
Severe outbreaks of EHD can noticeably reduce local populations of deer, but herds recover quickly, Rudolph said.
The state DNR is encouraging hunters and others who come across dead deer to submit a diseased wildlife report through the DNR’s Eyes in the Field online system, so EHD — along with other diseases that infect deer — can be monitored.
Deer can also get chronic wasting disease, a neurological illness that is 100% fatal over time. It's caused by transmissible proteins called prions. CWD does not infect humans.
Bovine tuberculosis, despite its name, can infect other mammals including deer. It's a chronic, progressive, and potentially fatal bacterial disease, that can infect a human who has prolonged and close contact with a diseased animal, or eats the inadequately cooked meat from an infected animal.
In Michigan, bovine TB is most often found in deer in northeastern counties of the state.
