If your heart sinks a little bit every time you hear New York announce a "first case" of something these days, you're not alone. This latest development out of the Empire State needn't make it sink further, but it is something of which state Department of Environmental Conservation officials urge you be aware.
The agency confirmed Wednesday that a white-tailed deer in Dutchess County's Dover Plains recently died after contracting Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD), a more often than not deadly infection transmitted by biting midges -- those infamous pests that are so hard to see many people refer to them simply as "no-see-ums" or "punkies."
The itchy bites, though, are far more difficult to ignore. Humans do get bitten by those insects, but EHD can't be transmitted to people, state officials say. The disease can't even be transmitted from deer to deer. It comes directly from the bug bites.
The Dutchess County case marks the first confirmed EHD case in New York this year. Multiple other deer deaths are under investigation, officials say, and New Yorkers are asked to report sightings of sick or dying deer here.
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EHD is endemic in the southern United States, which sees annual outbreaks of the virus, but northeast outbreaks are sporadic, leaving deer in the Big Apple with no immunity, officials say. Once infected, deer usually die within 36 hours.
Symptoms include fever, hemorrhage in muscle or organs and swelling of the head, neck, tongue, and lips. A deer infected with EHD may appear lame or dehydrated. They're often found dead by water sources. There is no treatment for EHD and no preventive measures. Dead deer cannot spread the infection. Typically, EHD outbreaks don't end in the northeast until the first hard frost kills the no-see-ums that transmit the disease, officials say.
The EHD virus was first confirmed in New York in 2007, with relatively small outbreaks in Albany, Rensselaer and Niagara counties and in Rockland County in 2011. The lower Hudson Valley saw a large EHD outbreak in 2020, one centered in Putnam and Orange counties that saw the public report about 1,500 dead deer as part of the viral outbreak investigation.
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That 2020 outbreak was likely obfuscated entirely by the virus affecting people, COVID-19, and awareness of a 2021 EHD outbreak that saw more than 2,000 reports of dead deer primarily in Ulster, Dutchess, Columbia, Oswego and Jefferson counties was likely a casualty of the same.
While EHD outbreaks don't have significant long-term implications for deer populations, the mortality rate can be high in small geographic areas where immunity lacks, environmental authorities say. Learn more about EHD here.
