A particular illness has been on the rise in deer recently and officials believe that it could get worse before it gets better.

Iowa Department of Natural Resources Conservation Officer Aron Arthur says the Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD), also known as “Blue Tongue Disease” has been impacting the deer population a lot this year. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio the illness is predicated by drought conditions, where a midge flea hatch from stagnant water and then bite the deer which causes a fever and eventually death. He talks about one example in Greene County about an individual finding a large number of affected deer.

“I’m getting calls everyday. I just took a call, a kid went looking for his deer that he had shot, and he was walking the creek because a lot of times if you wound a deer they’ll also go to water right? Well he found ten deer in one stretch of creek that were dead. Which (is) very indicative of the Blue Tongue or the EHD.”     

Arthur explains that when people find dead deer near bodies of water to contact the DNR and report their finding, as he describes why it is important for people to do so.

“We’re limited to 100 antlerless tags here (in Greene County). They need to know that because if we’re having a very high uptick of mortality from natural causes like that and we increase the doe harvest, that can really lead to a decline in the deer population and we want to keep it there for future generations.”  

Click on the links below to report EHD/Blue Tongue deer and to see how many deer have been reported in the state. According to the latest findings on the DNR Annual EHD/Blue Tongue Dashboard, Greene County had a total of 56 cases that were reported.

Reporting EHD/Blue Tongue: https://survey123.arcgis.com/share/454517c22f9f438a8697256aebb401ad

Dashboard of cases across Iowa: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/c23765e774304e38b31923f6bffdd984