Hairloss Yearlings

[bow4elk]

I've watched this doe and her twin buck fawns all summer into fall.  The lice have taken over on the young ones but I'm hoping the mild winter will help them survive.  I watched a fawn last year dwindle quickly, then later found the remains torn up by coyotes not 200 yards from my camera.  If they make it though the first winter, they can usually survive this.  Once the spring comes and they start growing their summer coats, the lice drop off only to set up shop again in late fall.

[carpsniperg2]

nasty bugs.

[Galpster]

Is there any way to help them get those darn bugs off of them? Sure does look bad. I wish I could go drop some lice away or something on them.

[Axle]

I've never heard of the hairloss syndrome on the west side refered to as lice. I read a while back that WDFW still has little knowlege of it but they say it is something that gets into the lungs and then works its way out to the skin and the deer try to rub it off of themselves which causes the already loose hair to fall out.
They do build an imunity to it after the first year.....if they live.

I've heard of lice on the east side in the mulies. I heard it came from another country and effects only deer. Someone chime in on that please.

[ABugg]

Both east side and west side involve an exotic species of lice.  One of the early theories on a cause was that lungworms were involved, but that has been debunked.  The earliest case in WA was reported around 1996, since then "hair loss" has spread south into California and more recently to some mule deer in eastern WA.

[bow4elk]

That's about right.  I was part of a WDFW training years ago by Briggs Hall (http://wdfw.wa.gov/wlm/research/health/hall.htm) and did hairloss counts for a long time from the Columbia all the way up into the San Juans.  I watched two yearlings yesterday and they'd scratch their sides nearly every 3-5 seconds.  Good thing for mild temps.