Some deer can take months to finally die of ehd. Def a thing.
Rut Nut
RUT_NUT
Almost all the bucks we found have been hard horn. Some just died in November when it warmed up. Around 15 bucks so far. Our population is way down compared to normal I know we will find more when we start shed hunting.This is on about 1000 acres. The attached picture is just a sampling early on.
This is in SE Marion Co around North and South Cedar Creek
This is in SE Marion Co around North and South Cedar Creek
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What a kick in the ballz!
Daver
PMA Member
Yikes!! That is a grim pic, sorry to see that. I think our neighborhood will be about like that too. Ugh! Did you have the DNR give you a salvage tag every time you found one? I was thinking about asking them to let us report them in bulk, instead of one at a time, but I don't know if that is a thing or not. If the officer has to trek out to our place, to say nothing about the neighbors, for every dead head we find this winter it is going to be VERY time consuming for him.
Hardwood11
It is going to be a good fall!
It’s a total game changer, it throws a wrench into management. That is for sure ! Sad deal .
My county DNR officer just had me text him pics and he mailed out a post card with each listed on it - 4x5, 5x5, etc..
Rut Nut
RUT_NUT
Yes all have tags. We have a good relationship with the local game wardens and send a picture to them and they drop by with tags at their convince.
fatboy
Well-Known Member
Came across this on the Des Moines Ike's FB page.
Thank you to Jace Elliott, IDNR State Deer Biologist for his talk December 5 on EHD (Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease) in our deer herd at the Des Moines Izaak Walton League! In 2023 we saw 1,926 suspect mortalities in 76 Iowa counties, the highest number of counties, which is the most counties historically impacted since the disease was first reported in 2012. EHD is potentially devastating at local (property) scale, however it rarely affects county wide population levels. EHD is a virus transmitted by the bite of midges (no-see-ums). Deer infected show signs of illness 7 days after exposure and it's often but not always fatal. The silver lining is that studies show variable innate resistance can develop, potentially reducing mortality over time. To learn more go to https://www.iowadnr.gov/Hunting/Deer-Hunting/Deer-Health.
Thank you to Jace Elliott, IDNR State Deer Biologist for his talk December 5 on EHD (Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease) in our deer herd at the Des Moines Izaak Walton League! In 2023 we saw 1,926 suspect mortalities in 76 Iowa counties, the highest number of counties, which is the most counties historically impacted since the disease was first reported in 2012. EHD is potentially devastating at local (property) scale, however it rarely affects county wide population levels. EHD is a virus transmitted by the bite of midges (no-see-ums). Deer infected show signs of illness 7 days after exposure and it's often but not always fatal. The silver lining is that studies show variable innate resistance can develop, potentially reducing mortality over time. To learn more go to https://www.iowadnr.gov/Hunting/Deer-Hunting/Deer-Health.
Massively under reported
Daver
PMA Member
I am right next to Van Buren in Davis and our neighborhood sounds just like yours. This was a VERY thin fall for hunting in our area, we only shot one buck. Normally, we would shoot 1 or 2 bucks and 6-10 does off of our place. All other neighbors had similar tales this year and probably 75%+ of "our" bucks disappeared off camera this fall. We all anticipate a "fruitful" shed, or shall I say deadhead, season.
But...some positivity...I was very curious how long the "rebuild process" might take in our area. One year, five years, who knows??? We had info that indicated that there was at least a several square mile area around us that was similarly impacted, so it wasn't as if surplus bucks were going to be able to jog across the road to us and fill us back up.
Since about late Nov up until now though, all of our neighbors and us have been "picking up" bucks, as evidenced by a good amount of pics on trail cams. OK, alrighty then, this is great news. Where there was only a limited number of bucks, and most of them were young pencil racks, in Oct through mid Nov...now there are "some", not the usual amount yet, but some...and some are older age class. I would LOVE to know how far these creatures had to travel to get to us...but at least we have some out there now, where there were very, very few just 6-8 weeks ago.
I suspect that we picked some up via rut related travels in mid-to-late Nov and then some more related to gun hunting pressure elsewhere, but I really don't know. I am pretty confident though that they didn't just come from neighboring properties though. A good number of what we are seeing now are "new" bucks, ones that none of us recognize. We do have excellent habitat in our neighborhood and pretty good food, albeit drought limited once again, so maybe we are getting more than our "share" since our places are better habitats???
But, no matter where these beasts are coming from it is more apparent this year than ever...if you build it, they will come.