{"id":150547,"date":"2025-09-12T03:53:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T03:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/150547\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T03:53:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T03:53:08","slug":"epizootic-hemorrhagic-disease-sweep-through-ohios-deer-population-whiz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/150547\/","title":{"rendered":"Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease sweep through Ohio&#8217;s deer population &#8211; WHIZ"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"770\" height=\"435\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/screenshot-2025-09-11-121628-1024x578.png\" class=\"wp-image-2183116 attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"Deer grazing in the woods.\" decoding=\"async\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>ZANESVILLE, Ohio \u2013 The ongoing lack of rain has led to an epidemic in Ohio\u2019s deer population called <a href=\"https:\/\/ohiodnr.gov\/discover-and-learn\/safety-conservation\/wildlife-management\/wildlife-disease\/epizootic-hemorrhagic-disease\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD).<\/a><\/p>\n<p>With over 5,000 reported cases throughout Ohio and mostly in the Southeastern region, the illness presents itself through pronounced swelling of head, neck, tongue and eyelids. They may also appear disoriented with little to no fear of humans. The spread of the disease is attributed to the bites from a type of fly called a midge, which deer are particularly exposed to in times of drought.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith not a lot of rain fall, you got stagnant pools of water and that\u2019s where the midge likes to lay its eggs. And the deer like to go to those stagnant pools. They\u2019re out of the way, in the woods and that\u2019s where they pick up the disease,\u201d Muskingum County Wildlife Officer Jeff Berry said.<\/p>\n<p>According Berry, most of the deer that contract EHD succumb to the disease with 72 hours. The impact of this illness is so severe that the Ohio Division of Wildlife hopes people can report any deer they see exhibiting symptoms.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s very important, you know, [that] people contact us to report any dead or sick deer so we can document it and distribute it, and the severity of the disease outbreak. It helps us follow, and track, and keep numbers,\u201d Berry said.<\/p>\n<p>EHD will stop spreading after the first frost of the season quells the midge fly population. You can contact <a href=\"https:\/\/ohiodnr.gov\/rules-and-regulations\/rules-for-landowners\/county-wildlife-officers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">your county\u2019s Wildlife Officer<\/a> or call 1-800-WILDLIFE to report any sick or dead deer.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ZANESVILLE, Ohio \u2013 The ongoing lack of rain has led to an epidemic in Ohio\u2019s deer population called&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-150547","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}