Wisconsin wildlife officials have logged more than 700 reports of dead deer across Washington and Waukesha counties as an outbreak of epizootic hemorrhagic disease tears through local herds, with experts saying there is no way to stop the virus once it takes hold. Many of the reports describe healthy-looking deer found dead in or near water, a telltale pattern of the insect-borne disease.
According to the WISN report by Tanner Kahler, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has received over 600 EHD-suspect deer reports from Washington County and more than 100 from Waukesha County, per the DNR. The agency confirmed the virus, known as EHD, after detecting it in two dead deer found near Richfield and West Bend in August, according to a DNR news release cited in the report. Officials say they are now fielding EHD reports nearly every day.
What's Making This Outbreak Different
State wildlife health specialists noted in August that the outbreak in Washington County was occurring earlier in the season and at a much larger scale than typical Wisconsin outbreaks, which usually average just 30 to 50 dead deer, according to FOX6 News Milwaukee. The scale this year dwarfs that historical baseline by a wide margin.
Part of the reason the die-off looks so dramatic comes down to biology. Per Wisconsin DNR documentation, EHD is not endemic in Wisconsin, meaning local white-tailed deer have not developed the routine antibodies that herds in southern states carry, where the virus is common and mortality typically stays below 25 percent. Without that immunity, Wisconsin deer suffer significantly higher death rates whenever the virus does strike.
A Virus With a Sporadic History
EHD was first diagnosed in Wisconsin white-tailed deer in the fall of 2002 in Iowa County, followed by sporadic outbreaks recorded in 2012, 2019, 2020, 2021, and late 2024, per DNR records. No EHD cases were detected in the state in 2022, 2023, or 2025, making this year's early and expansive spread notable. Wisconsin DNR herd specialists stressed, though, that despite localized clusters of dead deer, short-duration EHD outbreaks rarely cause long-term harm to the overall white-tailed deer herd population.
Signs of the disease include foaming around the nose and mouth, excessive salivation, and deer appearing weak or unusually approachable by humans, per the WISN report. EHD is spread by midges, which are small biting flies, and it cannot infect humans. Experts say the outbreak cannot be stopped once it starts, but frost will slow the spread of EHD by impacting the midges that carry it.
Why the Virus Can't Be Contained Until Winter
The biting midges responsible for spreading EHD, in the genus Culicoides, breed in warm, shallow, silty mud holes, with outbreaks in northern states typically driven by wet spring conditions followed by late-summer heat and drought, according to the National Deer Association. Those conditions help explain why the virus is capable of tearing through herds so quickly in late summer before cold weather arrives.
It is worth distinguishing EHD from Chronic Wasting Disease, another deer illness that circulates in Wisconsin. CWD is a contagious prion disease spread directly deer-to-deer that can take over a year to kill an animal and persists in soil for years, while EHD is an orbivirus spread strictly by biting midges that kills deer within days of symptom onset and dies off with the first hard winter frost, the National Deer Association notes.
Carcass Disposal Creates a Legal Headache
Beyond the die-off itself, property owners are running into a practical and legal problem: what to do with the bodies. Under Wisconsin Statute s. 289.01(33), deer carcasses are legally classified as solid waste, making it illegal to dump them on public roadways, public lands, or private property without landowner permission, according to municipal guidance from the Wisconsin DNR.
In that guidance, issued in late August, the DNR advised that state staff cannot pick up dead deer and recommended landfilling or deep private burial instead. The agency also cautioned that regional landfills, including GFL facilities, may restrict entry to carcasses that lack negative Chronic Wasting Disease test results, creating a disposal bottleneck for residents and municipal crews across both counties.
Despite the sanitation headaches, officials reiterated that EHD poses no health hazard to people. The virus does not survive long inside dead carcasses and cannot infect humans through midge bites, direct carcass handling, or venison consumption, per Wisconsin DNR guidelines reported by Civic Media WRCO.
How to Report a Dead or Sick Deer
The DNR is asking anyone who spots a sick or dead deer to report it through the agency's online reporting link, by phone at 608-267-0866, or by email at [email protected]. The reports have become a near-daily occurrence for the agency as the outbreak continues to unfold across Washington and Waukesha counties.
The Wisconsin outbreak fits a broader regional pattern. Severe EHD outbreaks are a recurring issue across the Midwest during warm, dry autumns, as Hoodline reported in earlier coverage of a 2024 die-off when Michigan's DNR documented over 2,000 deer deaths across multiple counties. Wildlife managers still expect local herds to recover quickly once cold weather sets in and eliminates the midge populations driving the current spread.
