I have been out in the woods quite a bit lately and have seen exactly one deer in over 100 miles of driving the mountain roads in my UTV and SUV.
This summer was so incredibly hot and dry that it forced deer to congregate around limited water sources. Blue Tongue broke out and spread like wildfire among the deer population.
Thousands of deer have died.
My dad told me his buddy who lives up on the nearby mountain said it stinks bad when you go outside due to all of the dead deer in the woods.
Another of his friends counted 500 dead deer on his property.
Haven't seen much in the media yet, but I suspect the deer harvest numbers will be bad.
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/20...rt-for-oct-28/
Biologists at deer check stations say they aren’t seeing many whitetail bucks this year due to huge die-offs caused by blue tongue. The disease, they say, is nondiscriminatory, killing bucks, does and fawns. In areas around Colfax, the die-off has been particularly large. While there are pockets of habitat that haven’t been affected throughout Washington and Idaho, this has been the worst blue tongue outbreak many have seen.
The severity of the disease could affect deer populations and hunting seasons for several years. Mule deer seem to be somewhat immune to blue tongue, though biologists say it can affect their hormones, causing them to retain their velvet well into winter and lose their desire to breed.