Dozens of deer found dead in Saginaw area, disease suspected

An angler recently stumbled upon dozens of deer lying dead in rivers outside Saginaw
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources suspects epizootic hemorrhagic disease but is awaiting test results
Epizootic hemorrhagic disease is a virus spread to deer from small biting flies

Ryan Mills of Burton stumbled upon an “eerie” sight early Sunday morning in the Saginaw area.

While fishing along the Cass River in a kind of swampy area, he saw a deer lying dead in the water with no visible gunshot wounds. He went up the river around 20 yards and found two more deer dead in the water. He went a little farther up and saw another pair dead on the ground.

At that point, it began to smell.

“I started seeing deer laying everywhere on the banks,” said Mills. “I even seen some deer just standing there in the water and they were just out of it.”

All told, he estimates he found at least 30 deer dead on the Cass and Saginaw rivers in and around the Shiawassee River State Game Area.

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“I’ve never seen anything like that in my life. I’ve never seen that many dead deer in one area,” he said. “It was kind of eerie.”

Mills posted photos on Facebook and the theories started rolling into the comments — maybe something toxic in the water, maybe the government trying to wipe out a food source or maybe a disease.

It’s probably disease, said officials with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

Scott Larsen, a wildlife veterinarian with the DNR, said the deaths are consistent with epizootic hemorrhagic disease, or EHD.

“It seems very unlikely these deaths are from anything other than EHD,” he told Bridge Michigan in an email.

The DNR is testing a deer from the area but results aren’t expected back until next week.

A DNR wildlife biologist, Cameron Dole, told Bridge Michigan in an email that two recent events in and around the Shiawassee River State Game Area could have raised red flags for residents: A mosquito abatement bacterium was deployed from the air and partially untreated sewage flowed into the Shiawassee River about 30 miles away.

Neither are likely the culprit for the dead deer Mills found, Dole said.

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Dole said the mosquito-abating bacterium has been used in the area for years, is well-studied and known to be safe for humans and animals. Plus deer were found dead far from where it was distributed.

After the sewage spill, Dole said he asked staff at the Saginaw County Michigan Department of Health and Human Services office if they could test in the state game area. According to Dole, officials in that office said they didn’t even have equipment sensitive enough to test that far away and they were not concerned.

And neither is he.

“The clinical profile of the deer mortalities is aligned with EHD,” he said.

EHD is a disease contracted by deer when they get bitten by small biting flies, or midges, carrying the virus. It makes deer feverish and dehydrated, so they’re often found dead in water, where they go to seek relief of their symptoms. Die-offs of deer from the disease go up in Michigan during late summer and early fall and usually end within two weeks of the first frost, which kills the flies.

The DNR said it’s received a little over 1,200 reports of EHD so far this year, which is similar to last year’s numbers.

A dead deer in a lake — This deer was found dead from epizootic hemorrhagic disease in 2012, the year it killed an estimated 14,000 deer in 30 Michigan counties. (Courtesy of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources)

If the disease is found to be in Saginaw County where Mills saw all the dead deer, that would be the first positive test for EHD in that county in 2026. Deer deaths have been attributed to EHD in eight other counties so far this year: Branch, Hillsdale, Ingham, Jackson, Lapeer, Lenawee, Oakland and Washtenaw.

There is no evidence EHD can spread from deer to humans. Unlike chronic wasting disease or bovine tuberculosis — two other diseases found in Michigan deer — EHD is not spread from deer to deer.

While Michigan hunters can test deer they kill for chronic wasting disease and bovine tuberculosis, they cannot test deer for EHD. But the DNR says hunters should not be worried.

“We do not recommend consuming any animals that are visibly sick, but healthy deer harvested from areas where EHD has been present are still safe to eat,” DNR deer specialist Brent Rudolph said in a press release.

According to the DNR, EHD was first detected in Michigan in 1955. The largest-scale detection in the state since then was in 2012, when deer deaths attributed to the disease were estimated at around 14,000 and reached 30 counties.

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