What causes cutaneous fibromas?

[Seahawk12]

While out scouting a few weeks ago in Chelan County I had a Buck Whitetail run up to within 10' of me. I noticed that it had what looked like a lemon sized blood blister on its back leg. A friend of mine happened to be on the opposite embankment from me and took some pictures. Unfortunately, I have managed to delete the pics and am waiting for him to forward some copies. When he does I will share them here.
I have been looking via search engines for an explanation as to what it was that I saw that day and it would seem that it was a case of cutaneous fibromas.

Here is a short explanation that I found of what this virus is:

What causes cutaneous fibromas?

Cutaneous fibromas are wart-like, hairless tumors caused by a virus. The virus, which is species specific, poses no known threat to humans.  In deer the viruses that cause fibromas are probably transmitted primarily through broken skin. Deer become infected when an area with broken skin comes in direct contact with an infected deer or with a surface that an infected deer rubbed against. Biting insects may also be able to transmit deer fibroma.

How much do fibromas affect deer?

Fibromas are restricted to the skin of deer and do not spread to internal organs. The impact of fibromas on the health of the deer varies depending on the number and size of the skin masses. If fibromas are small and few in number, the deer’s immune system can take care of the tumors and they resolve spontaneously without significant impact to the health of the deer. In most cases, fibromas are small and resolve on their own.

However, occasionally fibromas can become large or numerous, at which time they may significantly impact the health of the deer, either by interfering with sight, respiration, eating or walking or they may become ulcerated resulting in secondary bacterial infections. When fibromas are large, numerous, or in critical locations (eyes, mouth, etc.), they can result in significant disease and death.  There is no treatment for fibromas in wild deer.



My question would be if other hunters have seem very much of this? If so, what part of the state and do you notice a trend? Are you seeing more as the years go by? Less?
Thanks for any feed back.

[Bango skank]

This guy in stevens county had a number but they went away with time.

[gr8whthunter]

i havent personally seen this but my hunting partners dad spent his tag last year on a spike that had green "sacks" of liquid? on its sides, so he put the spike down as it didnt look healthy and ended up just burning the body, not knowing what was wrong with the poor little guy. he did state that this little guy didnt look healthy and wasnt walking healthy at all

[gaddy]

never seen or heard of this until now. thanks for the information!

[Seahawk12]

Thank you for the pics Bango.
I also have seen this same thing called "Fibromatosis".
The WSDFW doesn't seem to have anything on their website, so maybe it isn't too serious here. I think when I get the photos I will send them a copy to make sure they are aware it's in that area. The Oregon DFW site did have a page with information, so its enough of a concern there for them to take the time to set that up.

[Bango skank]

Thank you for the pics Bango.
I also have seen this same thing called "Fibromatosis".
The WSDFW doesn't seem to have anything on their website, so maybe it isn't too serious here. I think when I get the photos I will send them a copy to make sure they are aware it's in that area. The Oregon DFW site did have a page with information, so its enough of a concern there for them to take the time to set that up.

I believe that "Fibromatosis" is the disease, or infection, that the animal has while the actual warts themselves are called Cutaneous Fibromas.  I don't know if that even made sense the way I said it.  Like "this animal has Fibromatosis, therefore there are cutaneous fibromas growing on him."   

Hell maybe I'm wrong, I don't know, but i researched it a little bit a while back and it seems like it is normally not a major problem, though in some extreme cases it will kill the animal if their warts get big enough and numerous enough to interfere with normal daily life like walking and eating, opening the eyes, that kind of stuff.

[Seahawk12]

Thank you for the pics Bango.
I also have seen this same thing called "Fibromatosis".
The WSDFW doesn't seem to have anything on their website, so maybe it isn't too serious here. I think when I get the photos I will send them a copy to make sure they are aware it's in that area. The Oregon DFW site did have a page with information, so its enough of a concern there for them to take the time to set that up.

I believe that "Fibromatosis" is the disease, or infection, that the animal has while the actual warts themselves are called Cutaneous Fibromas.  I don't know if that even made sense the way I said it.  Like "this animal has Fibromatosis, therefore there are cutaneous fibromas growing on him."   

Hell maybe I'm wrong, I don't know, but i researched it a little bit a while back and it seems like it is normally not a major problem, though in some extreme cases it will kill the animal if their warts get big enough and numerous enough to interfere with normal daily life like walking and eating, opening the eyes, that kind of stuff.

Makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.
Some of the pics online were pretty extreme. After looking at some of them I started to wonder/worry how wide spread it is in our beautiful state. I've seen a lot of deer and this was the first time I had personally spotted it. Hopefully, it stays contained and we don't see an uptick in instances. That is why I asked. I was hoping to get an idea of how common it is among the hunters on this site because there seem to be a lot of hunters with boots in the woods here.