Something worth reading about the "latest" deer disease
10-01-2007, 07:45 AM
#1
Giant Nontypical
Thread Starter
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Darien, IL
Posts: 6,744
Something worth reading about the "latest" deer disease
[hr]
Welcome to the Southern Illinoisan Outdoors section webpage! This weekly feature is a supplement to the Outdoors section of our paper, and is updated every Friday.
Comment on this story | Read comments
We should keep an eye on deer-killing disease
I received an e-mail a few weeks ago tipping me off that farmers and hunters throughout Southern Illinois were finding dead deer in the woods.
Before I had a chance to explore the tip, stories came out of Springfield indicating Illinois deer were dying as a result of epizootic hemorrhagic disease — a gnat-borne virus that causes high fever and severe internal bleeding.
Not being a biologist, I certainly don’t know what the root cause of the disease is.
Anecdotally, I can’t help but think this may be an example of natural selection at work.
The density of deer throughout Illinois, particularly parts of Southern Illinois, is incredible. In my roughly 40-mile drive from Carbondale to Harrisburg it’s not unusual for me to see 100 deer or more.
Driving through residential areas of Carbondale and Harrisburg, I’ve seen deer grazing densely populated areas. I’ve had biologists tell me that deer herds in some regions of Southern Illinois are approaching carrying capacity.
Deer populations have reached levels where city slickers consider them more of a nuisance than cute. At Southern Illinois University — where several deer attacks have occurred over the past few years — deer are considered a hazard among some segments of the student population.
When over-crowding occurs, nature has ways of thinning out the herd. In north-central Illinois chronic-wasting disease has been discovered. In this end of the state, it’s EHD.
Is Mother Nature taking pre-emptive action? I don’t know.
However, I do know Illinois Department of Natural Resources biologists have been wrangling with the burgeoning deer herd for years.
One obvious answer would appear to be to make it open season on deer. That suggestion has been discussed at various seminars I’ve attended. Unfortunately, like most simple answers to complex problems, simply expanding season lengths and liberalizing limits won’t produce the desired effects.
IDNR biologists have been consistent in maintaining expanding the hunting season is not likely to increase harvest.
Currently, Illinois has a seven-day shotgun season. The largest harvest of deer is during shotgun season. The season is broken up into two weekends in late November or early December.
According to biologists, hunters have indicated they probably would not spend more time in the woods if the season were expanded. For many hunters, the deer season is as much a social activity as a time to actually harvest a deer.
It’s also been suggested that the season run on seven consecutive days rather than on two weekends — which are two weeks apart. Again, hunter information indicates that hunters are more likely to return to the woods after a two-week hiatus than to spend that many consecutive days hunting.
Finally, between archery, shotgun and specialty seasons, hunters can already take virtually as many deer as they want.
The state has already put several antler-less only regulations in effect to maximize the harvest of does. The regulations were an attempt to counter the trophy-deer culture. If the regulations are having an effect, it’s not enough to keep the population from increasing.
It is a situation that bears watching.
LES WINKELER is the outdoors writer for The Southern Illinoisan. Contact him at [email protected] or call 351-5088.
[email protected] / 351-5088[/align]
Welcome to the Southern Illinoisan Outdoors section webpage! This weekly feature is a supplement to the Outdoors section of our paper, and is updated every Friday.
Comment on this story | Read comments
We should keep an eye on deer-killing disease
I received an e-mail a few weeks ago tipping me off that farmers and hunters throughout Southern Illinois were finding dead deer in the woods.
Before I had a chance to explore the tip, stories came out of Springfield indicating Illinois deer were dying as a result of epizootic hemorrhagic disease — a gnat-borne virus that causes high fever and severe internal bleeding.
Not being a biologist, I certainly don’t know what the root cause of the disease is.Anecdotally, I can’t help but think this may be an example of natural selection at work.
The density of deer throughout Illinois, particularly parts of Southern Illinois, is incredible. In my roughly 40-mile drive from Carbondale to Harrisburg it’s not unusual for me to see 100 deer or more.
Driving through residential areas of Carbondale and Harrisburg, I’ve seen deer grazing densely populated areas. I’ve had biologists tell me that deer herds in some regions of Southern Illinois are approaching carrying capacity.
Deer populations have reached levels where city slickers consider them more of a nuisance than cute. At Southern Illinois University — where several deer attacks have occurred over the past few years — deer are considered a hazard among some segments of the student population.
When over-crowding occurs, nature has ways of thinning out the herd. In north-central Illinois chronic-wasting disease has been discovered. In this end of the state, it’s EHD.
Is Mother Nature taking pre-emptive action? I don’t know.
However, I do know Illinois Department of Natural Resources biologists have been wrangling with the burgeoning deer herd for years.
One obvious answer would appear to be to make it open season on deer. That suggestion has been discussed at various seminars I’ve attended. Unfortunately, like most simple answers to complex problems, simply expanding season lengths and liberalizing limits won’t produce the desired effects.
IDNR biologists have been consistent in maintaining expanding the hunting season is not likely to increase harvest.
Currently, Illinois has a seven-day shotgun season. The largest harvest of deer is during shotgun season. The season is broken up into two weekends in late November or early December.
According to biologists, hunters have indicated they probably would not spend more time in the woods if the season were expanded. For many hunters, the deer season is as much a social activity as a time to actually harvest a deer.
It’s also been suggested that the season run on seven consecutive days rather than on two weekends — which are two weeks apart. Again, hunter information indicates that hunters are more likely to return to the woods after a two-week hiatus than to spend that many consecutive days hunting.
Finally, between archery, shotgun and specialty seasons, hunters can already take virtually as many deer as they want.
The state has already put several antler-less only regulations in effect to maximize the harvest of does. The regulations were an attempt to counter the trophy-deer culture. If the regulations are having an effect, it’s not enough to keep the population from increasing.
It is a situation that bears watching.
LES WINKELER is the outdoors writer for The Southern Illinoisan. Contact him at [email protected] or call 351-5088.
[email protected] / 351-5088[/align]
Published on: Friday, September 28, 2007 5:31 PM CDT
10-02-2007, 04:32 PM
#3
Fork Horn
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Montana
Posts: 309
RE: Something worth reading about the "latest" deer disease
EHD hits every few years here in Montana. It's locally called "Blue Tongue", although that is techinically incorrect. I don't believe it's nature's way of reducing the deer herd when the population is large as I've seen it wipe out the whitetails in areas where there were very marginal numbers. When it hits, it can be devastating. The last time it hit here in the Milk River Valley (about 5 years ago) the Fish & Game estimated that 70% of the deer died. I believe that was a conservative estimate. In some of the areas up the creek bottoms from the river where therewere small, isolated pockets of whitetails, they were completed wiped out. Places where I could go and see 15 or 20 deer in a day there were none. They are just now gradually showing back up in those areas.
