# Hunters cautioned: sick deer in TX



## suburbanite (Jul 27, 2006)

This is from the mailing list of the infectious disease professional society.

Basically, something is killing deer in Texas. They think that it is previously known deer-only disease, but haven't obtained enough samples to confirm that yet. For the present they are advising hunters to be extremely careful about dressing deer in the affected areas, until they confirm that the problem does not represent a threat to humans.

Here's the post. Comments in brackets at the bottom are by a veterinary infectious disease expert:

EPIZOOTIC HEMORRHAGIC DISEASE, CERVIDS - USA (TEXAS): SUSPECTED
**************************************************
A ProMED-mail post
ProMED-mail is a program of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases
<http://www.isid.org>

Date: 13 Sep 2006
From: ProMED-mail<>
Source: AgNews: News and Public Affairs, Texas A&M University 
Agriculture Program [edited]
<http://agnews.tamu.edu/dailynews/stories/WFSC/Sep1306a.htm>


With deer season just around the corner, deer experts are concerned 
about reports of an unusually high number of dead deer in several 
West Central Texas counties. Dr. Dale Rollins, Texas Cooperative 
Extension wildlife specialist at San Angelo, said most of the calls 
he has received are from Schleicher County landowners who have found 
dead deer at water sources. The affected region encompasses an area 
roughly from Eden to Ozona to Sterling City, said Dr. Don Davis, 
Texas Agricultural Experiment Station veterinary pathobiologist.

"While some level of deer mortality is not newsworthy, it looks like 
we have a hot-spot developing for epizootic hemorrhagic disease," 
Rollins said. "Epizootic hemorrhagic disease is a viral disease very 
similar to bluetongue in sheep and cattle, but EHD tends to be most 
common in white-tailed deer. When you see an abnormal number of dead 
deer in August and September, and the mortalities are near water 
holes, epizootic hemorrhagic disease is often the culprit."

Davis agreed with Rollins that so far, the first-hand reports he's 
received are consistent with bluetongue and/or epizootic hemorrhagic 
disease in white-tailed deer.

"Both diseases are viral in nature and both are vectored or spread by 
small biting flies called Culicoides." Davis said. "Epizootic 
hemorrhagic disease is seen clinically only in white-tailed deer 
while bluetongue can affect other species, including sheep and 
exotics. To my knowledge, only one necropsy by a veterinarian has 
been made," he said "I have had conversations with wildlife 
biologists and ranchers with experience or training that have 
observed signs, symptoms and particularly the gross lesions 
consistent with both diseases. So, bottom line is, it appears to be a 
fairly widespread outbreak of bluetongue or epizootic hemorrhagic 
disease. But we cannot entirely rule out other diseases."

Davis said neither bluetongue virus nor epizootic hemorrhagic disease 
are a threat to public health, but since a definite diagnosis is yet 
to be made, extreme caution should be used when handling dead deer in 
the affected area.

Rollins said deer deaths attributed to epizootic hemorrhagic disease 
are seasonally predictable, but unpredictable about where mortalities 
will crop up from year to year.

More information on epizootic hemorrhagic disease can be found at: 
<http://www.vet.uga.edu/VPP/graybook/FAD/blt.htm>

Contact: Dr. Dale Rollins, >

[Byline: Steve Byrns, 

--
ProMED-mail
<>

[There have been reports of excess deaths in Texas deer for a few 
weeks now, including in Jim Hogg County in South Texas. Because of 
deer ranch problems over submissions to TVMDL [Texas Veterinary 
Medical Diagnostic Laboratory] at College Station, ranchers can be 
reluctant at best, and especially so when the deaths can be confused 
with anthrax. Patently TVMDL has yet to confirm that BT/EHD is or is 
not to blame. One of the added confusions is the perception of a 
difference in susceptibility of white-tailed deer subspecies.

To quote my friend and colleague Ken Waldrup,
(<>):

"[Regarding the] northern genetic stock (i.e. _Odocoileus virginianus 
borealis_ rather than the native Texas white-tail, _Odocoileus 
virginianus texanus_). The northern borealis subspecies is well known 
to be more susceptible to bluetongue/EHD than is the native Texas 
white-tail, and many private white-tail breeders have used other 
subspecies to hybridize their herd. East Texas has a different 
subspecies (behind the Pine Curtain) and BT/EHD die-offs do occur 
periodically there. I also would not propose that there is total herd 
immunity anywhere. The evidence is that bluetongue/EHD is highly 
endemic in many parts of Texas (sero-prevalences approaching 98 
percent in animals greater than one year of age). Theoretically fawns 
would be exposed in their initial August/September, and they would 
either live or die (the vast majority apparently live). Those that 
die are removed from the gene pool. Those that survive have the 
possibility of passing along their survival to succeeding 
generations. I have seen fawns from Uvalde with subclinical 
bluetongue infections that succumbed to acute pasteurellosis after 
transport in August/September: classic viral immune suppression that 
allowed an opportunistic bacterial pathogen to invade. BT was 
isolated, but the cause of death was acute fibrinous pneumonia."

West and South Texas have been suffering from a severe drought and 
hot weather, only recently relieved by some rain. The drought would 
have interrupted the normal transmission of the orbivirus and 
together may have resulted in a significant number of deer being 
susceptible when virus circulation resumed. At this time I am 
presuming that it is EHD because EHD cycles before BT -- first 
reports were in August -- and as yet there are no reports of problems 
in Texas sheep. - Mod.MHJ]


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## suburbanite (Jul 27, 2006)

Not meaning to bump something you've already read, but I imagine this might also be an issue if you bring home contaminated meat and it turns out to be bluetongue, in which case your stock might be exposed if you didn't clean up your boots or truck or what-not.


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