Officials: Hemorrhagic disease killing white-tailed deer in state

State officials are urging Connecticut residents to report white-tailed deer that are acting strangely, appear sickly or are found dead, after three deer were confirmed to have hemorrhagic disease this year.

The cases mark the third year the disease has been confirmed in Connecticut since it was first detected here in 2017. Hemorrhagic disease is spread to deer by infected biting midges.

The disease cannot infect humans, so there’s no risk to people “handling infected deer, eating venison from infected deer, or being bitten by infected midges,” the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said in a news release.

The first of the three confirmed cases this year was found in a deer located in Goshen. The second case came from a deer in Kent “where an additional five deer have been found dead,” DEEP said. The third case involved a deer found on an East Haddam property where three other deer were also found dead, DEEP officials said.

The agency said other reports of dead dear in “multiple other towns”

primarily in the northwest and southeastern parts of Connecticut also fit the description of the disease.

The disease is caused by one of two viruses, Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease Virus (EHD) or Bluetongue Virus (BT). It primarily affects white-tailed deer, and mule deer, which don’t live in Connecticut, but the disease can also affect big-horn sheep and Elk. Bluetongue is also wellknown

as a livestock disease.

Symptoms of the disease in deer include swollen head, neck, tongue or eyelids. Infected deer may also have a “bloody discharge” from their nose, tongue ulcers, “erosion of the upper dental pad or ulcers on the tongue.”

Outbreaks of the disease are seasonal and typically end after a hard frost, which kills off the midges

that serve as a vector for the disease.

“Outbreaks of hemorrhagic disease tend to occur during years, like 2022, in which drought conditions are prevalent, and occur in late summer and early fall due to an increase in midge numbers,” DEEP said.

The agency said hunters should take precautions around animals behaving abnormally.

Hearst Connecticut Media file photo Connecticut officials have confirmed three cases of hemorrhagic disease in white-tailed deer in the state. The disease is fatal to deer, but does not infect humans.