I know I am probably in the wrong topic but I am gonna ask anyway. A buddy of mine killed this deer and it had what appeared to be blood spots all throughout the meat, we thought someone had shot it with birdshot at first but found no lead. Then as we looked closer it appeared that the spots were rotten. We threw it all away and I have been trying to figure out what this may be. I have contacted the conservation office but haven't heard anything. Just wandering if anyone may have seen this before.

Was that just in the backstrap or other places too?

That is indeed weird. I've never saw anything like that. Please keep us informed.

Steve E..........

A friend in PA shot an 8 pt buck this season. He got a call from his butcher to hurry over. The deer was rotten inside, the entire body just about. My friend said he noticed it had a stink when he gutted it but he had shot it running away from him and figured it was the intestines getting splattered. They turned it in to the Dept of Wildlife.

May I ask the original poster what state the deer was harvested in?

Could it be inected with CWD, Cronic Wasting Disease?

I have never seen it just read about it but from what I have read it slowly rotts the meat from whitin.

Either way I would soak your knife and any other instruments used in bleach to be safe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_wasting_disease

“Most cases of CWD occur in adult animals. The disease is progressive and always fatal. The most obvious and consistent clinical sign of CWD is weight loss over time. Behavioral changes also occur in the majority of cases, including decreased interactions with other animals, listlessness, lowering of the head, blank facial expression, repetitive walking in set patterns, and a smell like meat starting to rot. In elk, behavioral changes may also include hyperexcitability and nervousness.”

quote:

Originally posted by Kabluewy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_wasting_disease

“Most cases of CWD occur in adult animals. The disease is progressive and always fatal. The most obvious and consistent clinical sign of CWD is weight loss over time. Behavioral changes also occur in the majority of cases, including decreased interactions with other animals, listlessness, lowering of the head, blank facial expression, repetitive walking in set patterns, and a smell like meat starting to rot. In elk, behavioral changes may also include hyperexcitability and nervousness.”

KB that PA deer I mentioned was a very healthy looking specimen and he ran as normal as could be. He did not have the wasting disease.

I am thinking it is parasitic in nature.

In illinois the deer heard was affected by a parasite that has been called EHD or some call it blue tongue, I was told once the first frost occurs the parasite would either go dormant or die

RE: Blue Tongue; more than we would like died to this in Kansas over the last two years. I don't know if that is what your deer had or not but we lost a lot of deer here.
Insect vector and drought concentrates the deer and the insects around water.

Around Aurora Ohio there have been found as many as 10 dead deer in one group in a 3 mile area the DNR suspects blue tongue.
The deer count is down

I got a reply back from the DNWR and they said they searched through all of their books and pictures and said this resembled nothing they have seen. They are forwarding it to another research team and will let me know when the find something out.

Please keep us informed hammer

I have heard that a deer infected with blue tongue will have internal hemorrhage and will usually show a little bleeding around the eyes. I have never seen this myself though. I have also heard that once a deer is infected it will die in about a day or so.

More then likely Epizootic Hemmorrhagic Disease (EHD), also called Blue Tongue. Here in Missouri we had a lot of it this summer. It is a virus that is transmitted a Midge.
Stockdoc

My doctor & vet friends tell me EHD affects the abdominal cavity, in particular the intestines & bowel, and causes extensive hemoraging in these organs & the cavity. They didn't comment as to what effect EHD might have regarding tissue/muscle damage.

Chronic Wasting Disease affects the glands & neurological tissues. Everything I've read from the Wisconsin DNR indicates that muscle tissue of a CWD infected deer would be safe to eat, but who wants to do that!?

I'm very interested to hear more about the deer in question. That venison sure does look "off"!

friar

I would say EHD....we have been hammered with it here in Northern Indiana and Southern Michigan. Enough in Michigan that they cut back Doe permits.

SmokinJ:

My brother had a similar experience a couple of years ago. The butcher's conclusion was that the deer had been hit by a car and the injuries had gotten gangrenous. He threw the entire carcass away.

Rem

So no one has come up with a plausible explanation for this.

We know it is not EHD.

Surely we have a vet on here, or someone here knows someone that is a vet.

Looks like some sort of endoparasite/worm infestation to me

I showed it to my vet as well as the DNR, no one had any clue. They thought that the only way to be sure what it was was to test it in the lab.

i think that I was abducted by aliens & studied in their space craft then released back on earth.

To make a diagnosis some of the fresh tissue needed to go into formaldehyde and sent to a pathologist for a microscopic examination and fresh tissue needed to be submitted for culture. A bit of fresh blood for serology and microscopic exam would have been nice. It is possible a diagnosis could be made off the gross exam but it would take a real expert in wild animal diseases.

I hope someone will figure it out as it looks like a really interesting case.

Jerry Liles

We hunt in michigan in one of the hardest hit counties. We lost about 1400 in our half of the county from ehd. Of the 8 we shot, about 4 had signs of getting over the disease.......deformed and busted up antlers and hooves that looked like the front halves were dead and shedding off. One was much worse.....charcoal grey.colored liver, blood in the brain cavity, and tiny clots through the meat, much like your picture. The blood vessels rupture and cause bleeding and clots....it's a virus spread by the midge fly. I would really suspect it in yours and can't believe no officials said the same.

Ehd is a virus spread by a parasitic insect, most commonly the midge fly. The disease is not parasitic.

Ken,

Out of curiosity, when such a deer is shot, does your F&W dept call it a tagged deer for your license or how does that work? It would be a shame if so.