Fungus Deer

Welcome back MMers this one comes to us from Mary who lives in Wiscasset. Mary is a retired woman who lives alone and likes to spend as much time as she can outside, she loves power walking around her property which is set back a ways from the road, she likes to play in her garden, and has fun setting up feeding areas for the local wildlife. She has bird feeders, spreads out peanuts for the squirrels, and in the fall she goes and buys as many cheap apples as she can to feed the deer. 

One older buck has been coming to see Mary every year for years. She knows it's the same one because it has uneven antlers, one side is much larger than the other, she figures this is also the reason a hunter hasn’t taken him down yet, he wouldn’t make a very good trophy. However last fall when she saw the old man in the yard his antlers were even stranger. He had what looked like thick white cobwebs growing over his tines. The old buck was also stumbling a bit and seemed to have trouble biting into the apples. Mary thought he looked a bit drunk almost and was worried that the apples she had bought might have gone bad or started to ferment. Eventually the buck strolled off and she didn’t see it again until this fall. 

Picture of Mary's backyard/garden

Mary reported that the old buck showed up again, but the strange white cobwebs on his antlers had spread over his entire head, almost completely covering the deer’s eyes, nose, and mouth. He was acting even stranger than the previous year. He moved very slowly, had no interest in the apples Mary had put out and would just stare at her house. When a younger deer stumbled by her yard and the old buck was still there, it kept its distance from the old deer. As the younger animal went to eat an apple, the old buck sprang into motion and attempted to gore it.  The young deer seemed mostly unharmed but Mary saw that some of the white gunk from the old buck’s antlers was transferred to the other deer. 

Our best guess as to what the white substance looks like

Mary isn’t sure what is going on with this deer, what is wrong with it or if it will start spreading through the local population, but she is extremely worried about the whole affair and asked us to spread word about it. So if you see any deer with this white substance on them please inform your local game warden or report it to the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. Whether it is a fungus, a parasite, or something otherworldly we need to make sure it doesn’t become an epidemic. Stay safe out there Maine!