Eureka Springs has a large deer population in part because no hunting is allowed in the city limits. The deer can take a toll on gardens and cause major vehicle damage in collisions. It isn’t unusual to see deer, some showing little fear of humans, that bear the scars of several vehicle collisions.
Feeding deer is illegal under both city and state law because Chronic Wasting Disease has been detected throughout Carroll and surrounding counties. Anything that congregates deer, such as feeding them corn, can result in spread of CWD.
Many people love watching the deer, and in past years some people continued feeding the deer even after it was banned. But Eureka Springs Police Chief Bryan Young said there haven’t been any complaints about deer feeding in a while.
“We have had to put down deer, but we have not had them tested for CWD,” Young said. “Most of the deer do look pretty ugly at this time because of the coats. I’ve seen the same at Holiday Island. Once in a while we get a deer hit by a vehicle in the city limits, but most are on the highways outside the city limits because of the higher rates of speed and people are unable to avoid them.”
Observation of the condition of deer coats at this time of year is not a good way to be able to tell if they have CWD, Dr. William Craker, a wildlife biologist from Yellville, said.
“A lot of the deer look a little poor because they are going through a coat change,” Craker said. “Their coat is gray in the wintertime and changes to a light reddish tan coat in the spring. A better way to determine if deer have CWD is their behavior. With CWD, they become very thirsty. They may appear aimless. Towards the end, they will walk in circles and show little fear of humans or traffic.”
In urban areas where you have quite a few deer together, CWD can spread quickly. Craker said people get attached to the deer they are feeding not realizing that is the absolutely worst thing they can do. It doesn’t take many generations for deer to stop feeding on their own and depend on humans. He said if the deer have a lot of food, they are more likely to have two or three fawns at a time.
“The population explodes,” Craker said. “People have to feed them more. It turns into a terrible situation for everybody.”
But feeding isn’t the only way CWD is spread. Craker said it is spread through normal grooming. Deer stay in close contact and share breeding areas.
Craker said he thinks it’s important for people to pay attention to the health of the deer and, if necessary, contact the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission (AG&F) to euthanize a sick deer and have it tested.
“Unfortunately, not even an urban deer hunt is a cure for this,” Craker said. “It is going to spread throughout the herd regardless.”
Keith Stephens, AG&F spokesman, agrees that it is common to see thin and shaggy deer coming out of the winter months.
“These are normal parts of a deer’s annual cycle and do not necessarily indicate that there is a disease issue,” Stephens said.
CWD is an infectious disease, and all deer are susceptible.
CWD has a prolonged incubation period (12 plus months). Animals appear normal for the majority of the time that they have the disease. Stephens said in the later stages of CWD, the clinical signs associated with this disease can be very similar to other diseases of deer. The only way to know whether an animal has CWD is to test it.
“The most important thing that people can do to prevent CWD spread is avoid artificially congregating deer,” Stephens said. “AG&F regulations prohibit the feeding of deer (providing food without intending to harvest the animals) throughout the CWD Management Zone. It is very important that communities abide by these regulations and not attempt to feed deer. Communities with over abundant deer herds should also consider implementing urban deer hunting programs to control populations, maintain herd health, and prevent property damage.”
For an up-to-date map of CWD cases detected in Arkansas, visit agfc.com/cwd.
A recent concern has been Covid in deer. A January article published in Nature stated that humans have infected a wide range of animals with SARS-CoV-2 viruses, and there is evidence that “document that free-ranging white-tailed deer are highly susceptible to infection with SARS-CoV-2 virus, are exposed to a range of viral diversity from humans and are capable of sustaining transmission in nature. SARS-CoV-2 virus was detected by rRT-PCR in more than one-third of nasal swabs obtained from Odocoileus virginianus (white-tailed deer) in northeast Ohio during January-March 2021.”
Numbers were much lower in Arkansas studies. AG&F worked with the USDA Wildlife Services Division to help do surveillance for the SARS-CoV-2 virus in deer during the 2021-2022 deer season. Around 220 deer were tested. The virus was detected in two deer.
The deer don’t get very ill from the virus, but there is concern that the strains could mutate and that deer could pass Covid to humans. A team of Canadian scientists reports what they suspect is the first case of deer spreading the coronavirus to humans. “New evidence suggests that the virus could spill over from deer into humans,” the researchers wrote. The researchers identified a Covid-19 case in someone from Ontario who had recently been in contact with deer.
Craker said he is not concerned about Covid in deer.
“It is not transmissible to humans,” he said. “It is not the same Covid strain. A different type of Covid has existed in cattle for years. It is non transmissible to humans. Covid in deer doesn’t seem to make them sick. Deer are amazingly hardy. I have seen so many three-legged deer in the wild. It is amazing they survive at all.”
Craker advocates urban bow hunts to help prevent overpopulation. But when Eureka Springs tried that in 2012, it was not successful in part due to strong opposition by some residents who banged pots and pans to drive the deer away from hunter tree stands.
The urban deer hunt had been approved by a voter referendum in 2010. Fifteen hunters had been approved to participate in the deer hunt.