Dozens of white-tailed deer are dropping dead in front of hunters’ eyes in Pennsylvania, and game managers are scrambling to find out the cause.
According to several reports in Dauphin County, deer have been found dead in their beds — curled up with no outward signs of injury or illness. In other cases, hunters have reported seeing deer stumbling, falling over and walking in circles. Deer of all age classes, including numerous fawns, are reportedly being found dead, which has led some to speculate this wave of deaths is not related to chronic wasting disease. The minimum incubation period for CWD is 16 months.
Some have speculated the deaths might be linked to acute acidosis.
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Whatever the cause, one hunter, Dennis Morgan, told ABC 27 that he found a dying fawn during the first week of the state’s gun-hunting season. Morgan elaborated on the incidents in a lengthy Facebook post:
“Carsonville and surrounding friends/neighbors. I was going to wait for toxicology tests to come back before announcing this but due to the time it is taking, I felt I needed to let you know now and will update later. If you are finding any dead deer around the area or live deer falling down/running circles or refusing to leave their beds, please call the Game Commission ASAP and report them all. We are up to 21 deer now found in the valley, all on the east end of Powells Valley. These deer have no broken bones, no holes etc.. they are just sick and die shortly after often curled up in their beds and not near water. Imagine how many we haven’t found. Its bad enough we have a local poacher who I recently identified to the authorities and am awaiting further instructions, but this appears to be either a virus or poisoning that is working very quickly against our local herd, mostly immature animals. Again we will know for sure in a few days but for the guys that hunt our farms both regular season and red tag, stay tuned as it may not be happening this coming season. I won’t allow someone to eat an animal that will make them ill and I sure wont’ allow killing just to kill. FYI this is NOT CWD as that takes much longer to manifest than the actual age of these deer, they are all too young to have already succumb to it. It also does not appear to be Blue Tongue as nothing physical matches the normal showings of EHD.”
Here’s more on the story from a local newscast from PA:
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DEER STARVATION IS NEVER A PRETTY SIGHT
