Wednesday, May 10, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Tales from a
Sisters
Naturalist
by Jim Anderson
Feeding can lead
to deer deaths
Come on, people! Please,
please stop feeding those
mule deer that are constant
moochers in our backyards.
Shout at them, throw rags at
them, squirt them with the
garden hose — do everything
(legally) possible to convince
them that living in town is
NOT good for their health.
If the deer in town don’t
get hit by a semi going down
the main drag they bunch up
and spread AHD (Adenovirus
Hemorrhagic Disease), and
that is really a killer.
Kincaid Smeltzer, whom
I frequently bump into at
Bi-Mart, went hiking with
some of his pals recently in
the Alder Springs Trail coun-
try and found dead mule deer
on and near the trail, and
there were more in the area
he could smell.
Smeltzer said, “They were
found all along the trail from
the start to end. Some deer
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seemed more recent dead
than others with only a cou-
ple with signs of predation,
or what I could see.
“The ones that had not
been eaten yet were curled
up. As a result of seeing all
these dead deer, I wanted to
see if I could find out what
happened. Hopefully, you
can shed some light on this.”
During a phone call to the
Bend Oregon Department of
Fish & Wildlife office report-
ing Smeltzer’s discovery,
both Corey Heath and Randy
Lewis sighed, and Randy
said, “Yeah, those are prob-
ably more victims of AHD,
Jim. We’ve been checking
deer in the Metolius Unit and
surrounding area, and AHD’s
hit them pretty hard.”
And then he added, “I
wish there were some way
we could stop those kind-
hearted people from feed-
ing deer. Not only was AHD
the cause of their deaths, but
when we checked the stom-
achs of some of the dead deer
we found undigested junk
food, including alfalfa, heavy
grains and cracked corn.
When are people going to get
it…? Mule deer CANNOT
digest cracked corn!”
He went on to address how
crowding deer, when feed-
ing them grains and chicken
food, not only kills them,
but spreads AHD quicker,
and keeps them in town, pre-
venting the deer from going
out to the wintering grounds
PHOTO PROVIDED BY ODFW
Another dead mule deer. Thanks in a large part to people who insist on
feeding them food they can’t digest and crowding that spreads disease.
transmission.
For this reason, ODFW
encourages people to avoid
providing feed or water sta-
tions for deer because it may
help spread the disease if it is
present in the population.
• Monitoring, proper car-
cass disposal and not moving
infected live deer are methods
that can help minimize move-
ment of the disease to new
areas, but there is no cure.
• There are no known
cases of humans getting sick
from AHD. However, if a
person lives or hunts in an
infected area, it’s a good idea
to wear rubber gloves when
handling carcasses. People
who may be sick for any rea-
son or who have a compro-
mised immune system also
should take special precau-
tions around deer carcasses.
There also are no known
health risks of eating meat
from a deer infected with
AHD, but experts recom-
mend thoroughly cooking the
meat from animals harvested
in an area where the infection
is present.
• If enough deer die to
significantly reduce popula-
tions in a unit, hunter success
may be low in that unit dur-
ing the year of the die-off. If
subsequent herd inventories
indicate reduced populations,
low fawn recruitment or low
buck ratios, future tag num-
bers could be reduced until
the herd recovers.
So there you have it Good
People. AHD is nothing to
fool around with.
Please urge the Oregon
Legislature to get busy and
pass a law making it illegal
for anyone to feed mule deer
and elk.
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where healthy food is abun-
dant, and also keeps them
spread out and not so easily
infected with AHD.
Here’s what AHD is all
about:
• Adenoviruses belong
to a small group of viruses
that can infect a variety
of animals, both wild and
domestic.
• Infected deer have
symptoms that include rapid
or open mouth breathing,
foaming or drooling at the
mouth, diarrhea (possibly
bloody), weakness, ulcers
and abscesses in the mouth
and throat.
• Estimates from a
California outbreak indicate
mortality of infected fawns
generally was very high, with
lower adult mortality. During
a 2002 Oregon outbreak, deer
of all age and sex classes
died in roughly the same
proportions they occurred
in the California popula-
tion. Research is underway
in Oregon to determine how
many deer in the population
were exposed to AHD but
survived.
• Transmission is by direct
contact between deer, contact
with bodily fluids, and pos-
sibly airborne routes. The
time between exposure to the
virus and showing signs of
illness or death is commonly
less than one week. High-
density deer populations
could have a higher risk for
the disease due to the ease of
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