Written by HLRBO Staff|
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Wisconsin has logged roughly 2,300 reports of deer sick or dead with signs of epizootic hemorrhagic disease this fall, 1,300 of them in Washington County alone, in what the Department of Natural Resources calls the largest EHD die-off in state history. South Dakota refunded deer licenses in 16 counties along the Missouri River. And a Michigan DNR veterinarian said out loud what the map was already showing: the disease's impact on northern states "seems to be changing."
In August we wrote that EHD's 2026 record was thin and that the hard frost would decide it. The frost came late, and the record is no longer thin. This is where the season landed, state by state, and what it means for the deer you are hunting this month.
Wisconsin: a 30-deer disease became a 2,000-deer disease
The scale is the story. A typical Wisconsin outbreak kills 30 to 50 deer; the previous record for a single county was 226. This year the DNR confirmed the virus in deer found near Richfield and West Bend in August, watched it spread across Washington, Waukesha, Ozaukee, Dodge, Milwaukee, and then Fond du Lac and Jefferson counties, and by late September was fielding more than 1,600 reports in the southeast. The state's agriculture department confirmed the virus in non-lactating dairy cattle in Waukesha County, a reminder that EHD is a midge-borne livestock disease that happens to devastate deer.
Two decisions matter for hunters. The DNR is not reducing harvest opportunities for the 2026 season; the 272,720 bonus antlerless authorizations we reported in October stand. And deer herd health specialist Erin Larson has said repeatedly that herds bounce back from EHD faster than hunters fear, though she also warned there will be fewer carcass dumpsters this fall because of a fish-and-wildlife account shortfall. Hunters in the hardest-hit townships will see fewer deer; the quotas assume they will still shoot some.
South Dakota: refunds, closures, and buck-only
South Dakota's outbreak started in July and ran through an unusually warm September. By October the statewide count of deer reported dead had climbed from 196 to 407, with 31 lab-confirmed, and senior wildlife biologist Byron Buckley noted that much of the reporting came in October itself. The response was unusually direct: hunters holding licenses for 16 Missouri River counties can turn them in for a full refund, the state withdrew 62 unsold licenses, closed nine southeastern counties to mentored, youth, and apprentice deer hunting, and switched statewide archery and muzzleloader licenses to buck-only. That is a state managing a herd it can see shrinking in real time.
Michigan, Wyoming, Pennsylvania, Missouri
Michigan's DNR confirmed its first 2026 cases on September 9 in Branch, Ingham, Jackson, and Lenawee counties, and wildlife veterinarian Scott Larsen's line about northern impacts changing is the one to remember. Wyoming's Game and Fish is tracking an outbreak among whitetails and pronghorn in the Casper and Glenrock areas, on top of the whitetail license cuts it made for 2026. Pennsylvania confirmed an outbreak in Chester County. Missouri's Department of Conservation is tracking hemorrhagic disease reports across dozens of counties, as it does most years.
What the map says
Put the pins on one map and the pattern is the one biologists have been warning about: EHD used to be a Southern disease that reached the Midwest in bad years. In 2026 its worst outbreak on record was in southeastern Wisconsin, its most aggressive management response was in South Dakota, and Michigan's veterinarian is talking about a changed baseline. Warm, dry Septembers extend the midge season; the frost that ends it is arriving later.
For the hunter, the practical reading is local. EHD kills in pockets, hardest along rivers and water where midges breed and deer drink, and leaves herds a few miles away untouched. A landowner in Washington County, Wisconsin, or Brule County, South Dakota, knows what their ground lost this fall in a way no statewide number captures. Ask before you book, and expect the honest answer to be "fewer, but still here."
For the landowner, the reading is longer. EHD-thinned ground recovers, and the hunters who stay on it through the down year are the ones who are there when it comes back. A lease that survives a bad year is worth more than one that only works in a good one.
Local knowledge is the only EHD map that works, and HLRBO leases come with a landowner who has one. Listings across the country, searchable by county and species, with real lease agreements behind every booking. Find a lease.