22 October 2025
This week I realized of one other aspect impact of this summer time’s drought. Deer within the southeastern Ohio and western West Virginia are dying of epizootic hemorrhagic illness (EHD). It has additionally been reported in western Pennsylvania. I realized about EHD in The Guardian.
When landowner and hunter James Barkhurst went scouting his property a few month in the past to evaluate the native deer inhabitants forward of the autumn searching season, he was left in shock.
“I’ve seen about 14 lifeless in lower than a mile stretch. There’s a variety of does, large bucks and even fawns. You odor the lifeless in every single place,” he says.
The longtime deer hunter owns a number of hundred acres and runs a small Airbnb enterprise in Athens County, Ohio. This time of yr, hunters from North Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere normally descend on his lodging and property to hunt. This yr, with so many lifeless deer within the space, his enterprise has been virtually worn out.
Epizootic hemorrhagic illness (EHD) is extra prevalent throughout a drought as a result of the tiny biting midges that carry it are concentrated on the watering holes and so are white-tailed deer. The illness kills quickly. As quickly as an contaminated deer exhibits signs it dies inside 3 days, normally searching for water earlier than it dies. Thankfully EHD can not infect people and deer can not infect one another. Additionally thankfully, the midge dies on the first arduous freeze. (Hooray for winter!)
Ohio DNR describes the illness at this hyperlink. Additionally they generated this Ohio EHD map on 14 October 2025.
As dangerous as it’s in Ohio it appears worse in West Virginia. WV DNR stories EHD within the counties I marked crimson on this Wikimedia map, as of 20 Sep 2025.
In early September, West Virginia Metronews reported that EHD continues to ravage deer within the mid-Ohio valley in West Virginia.
Longspur Monitoring used a drone in Wooden County, WV to search out lifeless deer and tally them. Their 25-minute video exhibits every deer discovered. I’ve began the YouTube embed at 22 minutes into the total video so you may see their final discover and their conclusions. “That is what we’ve been speaking about. The odor of demise in every single place we go.”
Click on right here to see Longspur Monitoring’s full video.
In the meantime in Pennsylvania, the PA Recreation Fee has reported EHD in 5 townships and asks us to inform them once we discover extra. https://www.pa.gov/companies/pgc/newsroom/public-plays-important-role-in-monitoring-ehd
Learn concerning the financial affect of deer illness in rural Ohio on the article that impressed this weblog: The Guardian: Infectious ailments are killing deer and risking rural US economies: ‘You odor the lifeless in every single place’
