22 October 2025
This week I learned of another side effect of this summer’s drought. Deer in the southeastern Ohio and western West Virginia are dying of epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD). It has also been reported in western Pennsylvania. I learned about EHD in The Guardian.
When landowner and hunter James Barkhurst went scouting his property about a month ago to assess the local deer population ahead of the fall hunting season, he was left in shock.
“I’ve seen about 14 dead in less than a mile stretch. There’s a lot of does, big bucks and even fawns. You smell the dead everywhere,” he says.
The longtime deer hunter owns several hundred acres and runs a small Airbnb business in Athens County, Ohio. This time of year, hunters from North Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere usually descend on his accommodation and property to hunt. This year, with so many dead deer in the area, his business has been almost wiped out.
— The Guardian: Infectious diseases are killing deer and risking rural US economies: ‘You smell the dead everywhere’
Epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD) is more prevalent during a drought because the tiny biting midges that carry it are concentrated at the watering holes and so are white-tailed deer. The disease kills rapidly. As soon as an infected deer shows symptoms it dies within 3 days, usually seeking water before it dies. Fortunately EHD cannot infect humans and deer cannot infect each other. Also fortunately, the midge dies at the first hard freeze. (Hooray for winter!)
Ohio DNR describes the disease at this link. They also generated this Ohio EHD map on 14 October 2025.
As bad as it is in Ohio it seems worse in West Virginia. WV DNR reports EHD in the counties I marked red on this Wikimedia map, as of 20 Sep 2025.
In early September, West Virginia Metronews reported that EHD continues to ravage deer in the mid-Ohio valley in West Virginia.
Longspur Tracking used a drone in Wood County, WV to find dead deer and tally them. Their 25-minute video shows each deer found. I have started the YouTube embed at 22 minutes into the full video so you can see their last find and their conclusions. “This is what we’ve been talking about. The smell of death everywhere we go.”
Click here to see Longspur Tracking’s complete video.
Meanwhile in Pennsylvania, the PA Game Commission has reported EHD in 5 townships and asks us to tell them when we find more. https://www.pa.gov/agencies/pgc/newsroom/public-plays-important-role-in-monitoring-ehd
Read about the economic impact of deer disease in rural Ohio at the article that inspired this blog: The Guardian: Infectious diseases are killing deer and risking rural US economies: ‘You smell the dead everywhere’
In the last couple weeks, I have noticed the smell of death on the trails in Schenley Park. I thought it might have to do with hunting season, but perhaps it is this disease.