"It's literally so decomposed, it's just a dry bone," said Steve Weber as he was describing a dead deer near his property in Fowler, a village in Clinton County.
Weber says he's never seen anything like it.
"Instead
"It's literally so decomposed, it's just a dry bone," said Steve Weber as he was describing a dead deer near his property in Fowler, a village in Clinton County.
Weber says he's never seen anything like it.
"Instead of counting dead deer, we're now counting live deer because there are so few, it's very depressing."
According to experts from the the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, a viral disease know as the Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD) has attacked at least 3000 deer across 22 counties in Michigan. It's spread by a kind of small fly that's been unusually prevalent this year because of the drought and warm weather.
"It's a kind of perfect storm, everything lined up to have a large population of the insects and then they took it from there," said Stephen Schmitt, Wildlife Veterinarian with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.
The virus is not a threat to humans and only affects deer for the most part.
As a hunter, Weber suspects they won't have much of a hunting season this year.
"Very few people will shoot a deer just because we don't want the population down any further," Weber said.
It's also up to the property owner to clean up the carcasses or come to terms with the sight and smell.