Blue Tongue

Saw quite a few vultures swarming around an area of my place and roosting in the trees, we'd flush them every time we drove in or out. Went over to look around in the woods. Took a surprisingly long time for me to find it, but there was a pretty decent buck dead back in the woods. Not gonna look too close, but I doubt it was shot or hit by a car, long way from any high speed road.

We have had a huge amount of rain this year and where he died is close to where there has been a lot of standing water this year, but none there now. I know in the last stages of blue tongue they tend to seek water sources. Of course, we've had way more bugs than usual this year because of the rain and it's an insect borne disease.

It kinda sucks, because of the flooding of the public land I normally hunt, I figured on this being the first year I seriously hunted my own place, and looking at the antlers still in velvet with a couple of months more growth, he'd have been a shooter come muzzle loader season.

Anybody in this part of the country heard of this being a bad year for blue tongue?

Havent heard of it in Indiana Rich but the gnats that carry it breed on the mud flats and Lord knows we have had mud flats or as some call them fields. Seems strange seeing the Ohio in the banks

It's spreading from the East in to Montana. We had a large kill on the upper Missouri a few years back. It tends to follow heavy populations. If the herd isn't kept at a healthy balance nature takes over.

We had a bout of it in IL a few years back, took a couple of years to really start seeing many deer at all. Did find 7 dead by one dried up water hole, not a good thing.

I'm seeing a lot of deer, I doubt this will be a wide spread die off, also not sure that's even what it is, just wondered what killed a buck who was in his prime, he's a long way from a paved road and I highly doubt it was a poaching incident or anything like that.

They get cancer, tumors and other diseases just like other livestock.

Blue tongue disease appeared at my favorite mule deer hunting area in sage grasslands of Central Washington about four years ago as a result of insects bred on unusual mudflats around the lakes that I fish. It was heartbreaking to see all the bones around the sage grasslands. I haven't hunted the area for three years but after checking this spring, the mule deer population appears to have recovered. As noted by Mt Gianni above, deer get other diseases and tumors too. We an adult doe that has been hanging around our yard for a couple years. This summer she has developed a tumor on her neck as big as a softball which will undoubtedly kill her in the next few weeks. Deer have a hard life in the wild.

Blue Tongue or or EHD hit the area around my farmland back in '09. Virtually all the "feedlot" deer died. their skeletons were found near water, as described by the OP. Then the coyote pelt prices slumped and the coyote population grew a lot. The deer population still hasn't recovered after 10 years.