Research
Trial to protect wild deer against bovine TB shows high uptake rates February 18, 2025 WCMU Public Radio
... researchers deployed 1,500 oral vaccines, hidden in cubes with shredded hay and molasses ... deer across 16 study sites consumed roughly 60% of the medicine... t if those deer receive the vaccine, then they would have good protection ...
Oral delivery of bovine tuberculosis vaccine to free-ranging white-tailed deer - Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 2025
... Free-ranging white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are a self-sustaining reservoir for bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in northeastern lower Michigan, (United States) continually putting the area’s cattle industry at risk ... Deer learned to seek out and consume vaccine DU’s in just one to three days, with individuals often eating more than the 1 or 2 needed to vaccinate themselves. This high level of consumption was in spite of an exceptionally warm and dry winter, where deer were less food stressed than usual...
Prevalence and Diversity of Piroplasms in Free-ranging Ruminants in Nevada, USA - Journal of Wildlife Diseases, 2024
... Free-ranging ruminants in Nevada are infected with a high diversity of piroplasms, several of which are zoonotic or reported to cause disease in both wild and domestic ruminants...
Texas A&M Researchers See Success In First Tests Of Oral Anthrax Vaccine In White-Tailed Deer October 30, 2024 Texas A&M Today - Texas A&M University
... Researchers at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (VMBS) are closer to developing an oral vaccine for anthrax thanks to a recent study showing an immune response in white-tailed deer...
MSU experts research for vaccinating wild animals July 8, 2024 Michigan, WILX-TV on MSN
... to help prevent the spread of Bovine tuberculosis ... trying to target a large number of free-roaming wild animals like whitetail deer... They plan to place the medicine in various baits that would be dropped in a target region...
Parasitic Worms Spread by Flies Identified as Potential Cause Behind Dwindling American Moose Populatin June 1, 2024 Idaho, The Western Journal on MSN
... Research published in March in the Journal of Wildlife Diseases found a parasitic worm, Elaeophora schneideri, in half of the dead adult Shiras moose studied in southeastern Idaho, although it wasn't found in any of the moose bodies investigated in the northern part of the state...
Bovine tuberculosis study ‘came together really well,’ according to DNR official April 10, 2024 Michigan, The Alpena News
... The deer have taken the vaccine and Sewell said it takes about six weeks before a deer’s immune system has created any response to the vaccine... this is the first time the tuberculosis vaccine has been given to wild deer in the U.S...
Wildlife Managers Are Hiding Meds in Alfalfa to Vaccinate Wild Deer April 1, 2024 Michigan, Yahoo
... a field study in Alpena County that involves dropping treat balls filled with oral vaccines for bovine tuberculosis around browsing habitat to see if they help prevent the respiratory disease in whitetails ... The expectation is that deer will sniff out the clusters of alfalfa and molasses in their feeding areas and eat them ...
Bovine TB vaccination trial March 21, 2024 State of Michigan
... From late February to April 2024, the United States Department of Agriculture – Wildlife Services (USDA-WS) will deploy vaccine delivery units (VDUs) at selected sites in part of Alpena County, Michigan, to evaluate the ability to deliver an oral bovine tuberculosis (bTB) vaccine to wild deer...
Linking weather conditions and winter tick abundance in moose - The Journal of Wildlife Management, 2024 [PDF]
... Over the last decades,the number of moose(Alcesamericanus) infested by winter ticks(Dermacentoralbipictus)has increased in eastern Canada ... .Our results suggest that climate change may have a positive long‐term influence on winter tick abundance in the environment and thereby increase winter tick load o nmoose, which could lead to a significant decrease in moose body condition and survival...
Wildlife vaccination strategies for eliminating bovine tuberculosis in white-tailed deer populations
A Pandey, AB Feuka, M Cosgrove, M Moriarty… - PLOS Computational Biologu, 2024
... We evaluated the impact of pulse vaccination across a range of vaccine properties. Pulse vaccination was effective for reducing disease prevalence rapidly with even low (30%) to moderate (60%) vaccine coverage of the susceptible and exposed deer population and was further improved when combined with increased harvest... By fitting the model to the core endemic area of bovine tuberculosis in Michigan, USA, we identified feasible integrated management strategies involving vaccination and increased harvest that reduced disease prevalence in free-ranging deer...
Research sheds light on how brainworm is killing Minnesota's moose September 3, 2023 MPR News
... The moose population in the Arrowhead region in the northeastern corner of the state has plummeted over the past 15 years ... Scientists have long believed brainworm infected grazing moose when the animals ingested tiny gastropods, slugs and snails, that live on the forest floor... confirmed in published study in the Journal of Wildlife Diseases...
Latest Covid Twist: Coronavirus Is Spreading In Deer, Study Finds—And Many Are Getting It From Humans August 28, 2023 Ohio, Forbes
... a study published Monday in the journal Nature Communications ... Scientists collected 1,522 nasal swabs from free-ranging deer in 83 of Ohio’s 88 counties between November 2021 and March 2022, tested those swabs and found more than 10% of the samples were infected with coronavirus, according to the study...
Mineral licks may be to blame for deer infecting moose with deadly parasite Minnesota August 18, 2023 Quetico Superior Foundation
... new research, published in the journal Food Webs, studied how parasites carried by deer are transmitted to moose ... “We posit that deer and moose co-occur at discrete landscape features such as mineral licks, natural springs, and seeps, that create opportunities for high density contacts among deer, moose, and gastropods,” ...
A third of US deer have had COVID—and they infected humans at least 3 times July 13, 2023 Ars Technica
... new study ... People in the US transmitted the pandemic coronavirus to white-tailed deer at least 109 times, and the animals widely spread the virus among themselves, with a third of the deer tested in a large government-led study showing signs of prior infection. The work also suggests that the ubiquitous ruminants returned the virus to people in kind at least three times...
Deer mastadenovirus B pneumonia in a white-tailed deer fawn 2023 Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation
... A 7-mo-old farmed white-tailed deer fawn (Odocoileus virginianus) died after several weeks of progressive deterioration associated with endoparasitism and respiratory signs... To our knowledge, natural clinical disease associated with OdAdV2 has not been reported previously...
Deer may be reservoir for SARS-Cov-2 variants, study suggests February 6, 2023 New York, Veterinary Practice News
... The study, “White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) May Serve as a Wildlife Reservoir for Nearly Extinct SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern,” ... focused on the deer population in New York. “One of the most striking findings of this study was the detection of co-circulation of three variants of concern–alpha, gamma and delta–in this wild animal population,” ,,, when they were found in deer, neither variant had been detected in humans in New York for four to six months...
Exposure of white-tailed deer in North America to influenza D virus 2022 - Virology
... This study provides serological evidence supporting the exposure of the white-tailed deer population in North America to influenza D viruses...
A survey of piroplasms in white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in the southeastern United States to determine their possible role as Theileria orientalis hosts. 2022 - Int J Parasitol Parasites Wildlife
... In this study, we tested 552 white-tailed deer samples from the southeastern U.S. to determine the presence of T. orientalis ... All 552 samples were then screened with a T. orientalis specific real-time PCR protocol, but none were positive for T. orientalis...
Transmission history of SARS-CoV-2 in humans and white-tailed deer - Scientific Reports, 2022
... We found no evidence of direct or indirect transmission from deer to human... The extensive transmission of SARS-CoV-2 within deer populations and the large number of unsampled cases highlights the need for active surveillance at the human–animal interface...
German and Austrian deer thus far spared SARS-CoV-2 infections, unlike US deer April 1, 2022 Phys.org
... The research is reported in the journal Microorganisms in a special issue on viruses of wild mammals... None of the deer from Germany or Austria were positive...
No evidence of SARS-CoV-2 in the U.K.'s wild deer population March 31, 2022 News Medical
... A new study accepted for publication in the journal Transboundary and Emerging Diseases ... Of the 1,748 serum samples tested ... there was no evidence of SARS-CoV-2 exposure
Researchers find humans have given wild animals their diseases nearly 100 times March 22, 2022 Phys.org11h
... In a study published March 22 in Ecology Letters ("Assessing the risk of human-to-wildlife pathogen transmission for conservation and public health"), the authors describe nearly one hundred different cases where diseases have undergone "spillback" from humans back into wild animals, much like how SARS-CoV-2 has been able to spread in mink farms, zoo lions and tigers, and wild white-tailed deer...
From Deer-to-Deer: SARS-CoV-2 is Efficiently Transmitted and Presents Broad Tissue Tropism and Replication Sites in White-Tailed Deer March 22, 2022 PubMed.gov
... reported natural infection/exposure rates approaching 30-40% in free-ranging WTD in the U.S... efficient deer-to-deer transmission on day 3 pi. Consistent a with lack of infectious SARS-CoV-2 shedding after day 5 pi, no transmission was observed to contact animals added on days 6 and 9 pi. ...
Highly divergent white-tailed deer SARS-CoV-2
with potential deer-to-human transmission February 25, 2022 Canada, bioRxiv preprint.
... Wildlife reservoirs of SARS-CoV-2 can lead to viral adaptation and spillback from wildlife to humans (Oude Munnink et al., 2021). In North America, there is evidence of spillover of SARS-CoV-2 from humans to whitetailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), but no evidence of transmission from deer to humans (Hale et al., 2021;Kotwa et al., 2022; Kuchipudi et al., 2021)... Phylogenetic analysis revealed an epidemiologically linked human case from the same geographic region and sampling period...
If You Haven’t Thought About Coronavirus in Animals, You Should February 22, 2022 New York Times
... , the trickle of cases in new species became a flood: cats and dogs in homes and mink on farms. The virus infiltrated zoos, infecting the usual suspects (tigers and lions) ... Dr. Han and her colleagues ultimately identified 540 mammalian species that were most likely to host and spread the coronavirus...
Detection of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant (B. 1.1. 529) infection of white-tailed deer 2022. bioRxiv
... SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid was detected in nasal
swabs from seven of 68 (10.29%; 95% CI: 0.0–0.20) of the sampled deer, and whole-genome sequencing identified the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron VoC (B.1.1.529) is circulating amongst the white-tailed deer on Staten Island...
Multiple spillovers from humans and onward transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in white-tailed deer. 2022 PNAS
... To test the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 is circulating in deer, 283 retropharyngeal lymph node (RPLN) samples collected from 151 freeliving and 132 captive deer in Iowa from April 2020 through January of 2021 were assayed for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA. Ninety-four of the 283 (33.2%) deer samples were positive for SARS-CoV-2 RNA as assessed by RT-PCR. Notably, following the November 2020 peak of human cases in Iowa, and coinciding with the onset of winter and the peak deer hunting season, SARS-CoV-2 RNA was detected in 80 of 97 (82.5%) RPLN samples collected over a 7-wk period...
... As SARS-CoV-2 vaccine coverge of the human population increases and variants of concern continue to emerge, identification of the epidemiologic importance of animal virus reservoirs is critical. We found that nearly all (94.4%) of the captive white-tailed deer at a cervid facility in central Texas had neutralizing antibodies for SARS-CoV-2...
Wild white-tailed deer in the US are infected with COVID and it may come from contaminate water January 3, 2022 Daily Mail
... Although experts have not confirmed how these wild animals are contracting COVID, the leading hypothesis is that deer are drinking contaminated water - research shows the virus lingers in human feces and wastewater...
Widespread Coronavirus Infection Found in Iowa Deer, New Study Says November 2, 2021 New York Times
... A new study of hundreds of white-tailed deer infected with the coronavirus in Iowa has found that the animals probably are contracting the virus from humans, and then rapidly spreading it among one another, according to researchers...
Results of Study on SARS-CoV-2 in White-Tailed Deer September, 2021
... a study that analyzed serum samples from free-ranging white-tailed deer for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. Results of the study indicate that certain white-tailed
deer populations in Illinois, Michigan, New York, and
Pennsylvania were exposed to SARS-CoV-2...
Cross-sectional study of British wild deer for evidence of Schmallenberg virus infection
RM Southwell, K Sherlock, M Baylis - Veterinary Record, 2020
... Schmallenberg virus (SBV) is an orthobunyavirus, carried by Culicoides biting midges, that causes reproductive problems in adult ruminants ... The seroprevalence of SBV in the British wild deer population was 13.8 per cent; found in red, roe, muntjac and fallow deer species, with more in deer further south...
Susceptibility of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) to SARS-CoV-2 March, 2021 Journal of Virology
... infected animals transmitted the virus to non-inoculated contact deer. Viral RNA was detected in multiple tissues 21 days post-inoculation (pi). All inoculated and indirect contact animals seroconverted and developed neutralizing antibodies as early as day 7 ...
Persistent Spillback Of Bovine Tuberculosis From White-tailed Deer to Cattle in Michigan, USA: Status, Strategies and Needs November, 2018 Frontiers in Veterinary Science
... Free-ranging white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are believed to be a self-sustaining reservoir for bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in northeastern Lower Michigan, USA... Heightened management actions to combat bTB in deer could include deer vaccination programs, strategic habitat manipulations to redistribute deer from farms, and precision removal of deer in proximity to high-risk farms...
A Headache from Our Past? Intracranial Abscess Disease, Virulence Factors of Trueperella pyogenes, and a Legacy of Translocating White-Tailed Deer BS Cohen, EH Belser, SP Keeler, MJ Yabsley… Georgia, - Journal of wildlife diseases, 2018
... Our findings suggest differences in the pathogenic potential of T. pyogenes at individual sites may help to explain spatial variability of this disease. Anecdotally, the incidence of cranial abscess disease in Georgia seems to be associated with areas that were restocked with white-tailed deer from a high-fenced property in Wisconsin, US. Given the spatial distribution of this disease, we speculate that these genetic differences in T. pyogenes may have arisen from white-tailed deer restocking efforts, and our observations may be a legacy of an introduced disease manifesting itself generations later...
Assessing Fifty Years of General Health Surveillance of Roe Deer in Switzerland: A Retrospective Analysis of Necropsy Reports M Pewsner, FC Origgi, J Frey, MP Ryser-Degiorgis - PloS one, 2017
... We compiled 1571 necropsy reports of free ranging roe deer examined at the Centre for Fish and Wildlife Health in Switzerland from 1958 to 2014. Descriptive data analysis was performed considering animal metadata, submitter, pathologist in charge, laboratory methods, morphological diagnoses and etiologies. Recurrent causes of mortality and disease pictures included pneumonia, diarrhea, meningoencephalitis, actinomycosis, blunt trauma, predation, neoplasms and anomalies. By contrast, other diagnoses such as fatal parasitic gastritis, suspected alimentary intoxication and reproductive disorders appeared only in earlier time periods ...
Control of bovine tuberculosis in a farmed red deer herd in England F Busch, F Bannerman, S Liggett, F Griffin, J Clarke… - Veterinary Record, 2017
This report describes how Mycobacterium bovis infection was controlled and eventually eradicated in a farmed red deer herd in the north of England, following sustained tuberculin skin testing supplemented with serological (antibody) tests over a period of approximately two years. ...
USDA Confirms New World Screwworm Cases in Big Pine Key October 3, 2016 Florida, Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services
The United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) confirmed the presence of New World screwworm in Key deer from a wildlife refuge in Big Pine Key, Florida. USDA's National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, Iowa, confirms this is a local infestation of New World screwworm. This is the first local infestation in the United States in more than 30 years. In response to this infestation, Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Adam H. Putnam today declared an agricultural state of emergency in Monroe County [ 893.36 KB ], Florida. More information on the screwworm is available at FreshFromFlorida.com.
Associations among Habitat Characteristics and Meningeal Worm Prevalence in Eastern South Dakota CN Jacques, JA Jenks, RW Klaver, SA Dubay - Journal of Wildlife Diseases, 2016
... in white-tailed deer ... Probability of meningeal worm infection increased by 1.3- and 1.6-fold for each 1-cm and 1-C increase in summer precipitation and spring temperature, respectively. Similarly, probability of infection increased 1.2-fold for each 1% increase in wetland habitat. Our findings highlight the importance of wetland habitat in predicting meningeal worm infection across eastern South Dakota ...
Management of on-farm risk to livestock from bovine tuberculosis in Michigan, USA, white-tailed deer: predictions from a spatially-explicit stochastic model DSL Ramsey, DJ O'Brien, RW Smith, MK Cosgrove… - Preventive Veterinary …, 2016
... The eradication of bovine tuberculosis (bTB), caused by Mycobacterium bovis, from cattle in many locations worldwide is complicated by endemic foci of the disease in free-ranging wildlife. Recent simulation modeling of the bTB outbreak in white-tailed deer (WTD) in Michigan, USA, suggests current management is unlikely to eradicate bTB from the core outbreak area (DMU 452) within the next three decades...
Evaluating a strategy to deliver vaccine to white‐tailed deer at a landscape level JW Fischer, CR Blass, WD Walter, CW Anderson… - Wildlife Society Bulletin, 2016
... During 17 February and 2 March 2011, we created a grid of experimental bait stations (n = 64) on Sandhill Wildlife Management Area, Wisconsin ... We found no correlation between bait consumption and deer density or the number of bait stations per deer. We provide the first information on use of baits by free-ranging deer and nontarget wildlife to eventually vaccinate deer against bTB at a landscape level...
Hidden in plain sight: Cryptic and endemic malaria parasites in North American white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) ES Martinsen, N McInerney, H Brightman, K Ferebee… - Science Advances, 2016
... Using both microscopy and polymerase chain reaction, we screened a large sample of native and captive ungulate species from across the United States for malaria parasites. We found a surprisingly high prevalence (up to 25%) and extremely low parasitemia of Plasmodium parasites in WTD throughout the eastern United States ...
Brain infection study reveals how disease spreads from gut August 3, 2015 Medical Xpress
... The study reveals how the proteins - called prions - spread from the gut to the brain after a person or animal has eaten contaminated meat ... Researchers at University of Edinburgh's Roslin Institute studied the course of prion infection in mice... prion diseases include scrapie in sheep and chronic wasting disease in deer...
Environmental Factors Influencing White-Tailed Deer ... Shelli Dubay ... Plos One ... 2015
... White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are commonly exposed to disease agents that affect livestock but environmental factors that predispose deer to exposure are unknown ... Deer had evidence of exposure to PI3 (24.7%), IBR (7.9%), Leptospira interrogans serovar pomona (11.7%), L. i. bratislava (1.0%), L. i. grippotyphosa (2.5%) and L. i. hardjo (0.3%). Deer did not demonstrate exposure to L. interrogans serovars canicola and icterohaemorrhagiae...
Epizootiology of Cranial Abscess Disease in white-tailed Deer of Georgia S Cohen, EH Belser, CH Killmaster, JW Bowers… - Journal of wildlife diseases, 2015
... Model results indicated that the probability of a male having a cranial abscess increased with age and that adult sex ratio (male:female) was positively associated with this disease. Site-specific variables for land cover and soil types were not strongly associated with observations of the disease at the scale measured and a large amount of among-site variability remained...
First detection of adiaspiromycosis in the lungs of a deer.
K Matsuda, H Niki, A Yukawa, M Yanagi, K Souma… - The Journal of veterinary …, 2015
... Adiaspiromycosis is a pulmonary infection caused by the soil fungi, Emmonsia crescens and E. parva.. in the lungs of a female Hokkaido sika deer. This is the first reported case of adiaspiromycosis involving a cervid in the world...
Prevalence of Eastern Equine Encephalitis Virus Antibodies Among White-Tailed Deer Populations in Maine JP Mutebi, M Godsey, RP Smith Jr, MR Renell, L Smith… - Vector-Borne and Zoonotic …, 2015
... Forty-seven of the 332 (14.2%) sera were positive for EEEV antibodies, showing a much wider distribution of EEEV activity in Maine than previously known... Our data suggest higher EEEV activity in central Maine compared to southern Maine, whereas EEEV activity in Maine has historically been associated with the southern counties of York and Cumberland...
Epizootiology of cranial abscess disease in white-tailed deer BS Cohen - 2014
... Cranial abscess disease is a cause of morbidity and mortality, particularly for mature, male white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). Most cases of cranial abscesses are associated with infection by Trueperella ... the patchy distribution of cranial abscess disease across Georgia is likely caused by differences in the genetics of the causative agent, T. pyogenes. White-tailed deer managers must recognize the potential to transport pathogenic bacteria and disease when relocating white-tailed deer...
HAIR-LOSS SYNDROME IN BLACK-TAILED DEER OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST ... by RJ Bildfell - 2004 -
... including coastal bays, coastal mountains, central valley agricultural land, and urban areas. ..... Academic Press Inc., San Diego, California, pp. 677–680. ... Pediculosis of mule deer and white- tailed deer fawns in captivity. ... In Foreign animal diseases, Carter Printing Company, Richmond, Virginia, pp. ...
Study on pesticide impacts to deer cites Stevi researcher's work May 19, 2019 Montana, Ravalli Republic
... documented ... circumstantial evidence on birth defects on deer that could be associated with the pesticide... observations of deer with pronounced underbites and genital deformities ... Researchers found that animals with larger amounts of the pesticide in their spleen had pronounced underbites. Fawns also died...
Malaria parasites in white-tailed deer unlikely to affect humans February 8, 2015 Pennsylvania, WTOP
... Scientists studying mosquitoes at the National Zoo have discovered a previously unknown species of the malaria parasite in white-tailed deer... if you’re wondering if deer can spread malaria to other animals or people, Martinsen says, don’t be concerned. “It’s very unlikely that … these malaria parasites will switch into other mammal species, and it’s very highly unlikely that they will switch into humans.” ...
White-Tailed Deer Hosts Malaria Parasite inside it, But A Leap to Humans is Unlikely February 6, 2016 Maine, mainenewsonline.com
... Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute's genetics center in Washington, D. C., were searching for the source of malaria parasites in birds at the national zoo... not known to cause any risk to humans ... Their find dashes the current belief that no mammals other than people in the Western Hemisphere carry their own native forms of malaria ...
White-tailed deer have their own form of malaria February 5, 2016 Science News
... The malaria parasite in deer is a completely different species from the ones that cause disease in humans. A report in 1967 based on one deer in Texas had claimed that the parasite existed and a 1980 paper had named it Plasmodium odocoilei...The parasite has so far appeared at very low concentrations in animals’ blood ...
Local study published on developmental malformations in deer ...
November 3, 2011, Montana, Bitteroot Star, By victoria1
This long-term study was done with no funding, as a public service.... Underbite makes it difficult for a grazing animal to procure enough nutrition, the primary reason many of the females are unable to produce viable young and young animals fail to grow properly and gain weight after weaning... The authors attribute the widespread deformations to endocrine disrupting chemicals in the environment that are associated with fetal thyroid dysfunction that results in such deformations... The study concludes that underbite and the other serious symptoms of fetal hypothyroidism are likely a significant factor in the decline of wild ruminant populations in Montana and other western states. [Gary Haas of Big Sky Beetle Works, and Dr. Pamela Hallock, a researcher and professor at the University of South Florida, recently published in the journal Wildlife Biology in Practice]