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blizzard warnings - 13:52 , 03 October 2013

heelerless - 21:32 , 18 August 2013

Red Coat Inn in Fort McLeod - 11:38 , 23 June 2013

rushing into the waters - 09:53 , 21 June 2013

choosing a spot - 17:43 , 27 April 2013

31 August 2007 - 23:44

preliminary diagnosis

There's still a week to go before the lab test results are in.

But the necropsy suggests yesterday's pronghorn doe died of what I suspected, and the veterinarian predicted.

EHD.

Otherwise known as Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease.

A virus. Fairly species specific to pronghorn and white-tailed deer. Look it up in the textbook for wildlife diseases in our state, and it's the third one listed. Not all that uncommon, especially in late summer.

Not that common in my part of the state, though. Pretty sure this is the first I've ever found. Except maybe for those four or five pronghorn that seemed to have died for no reason what, twenty-five years ago? I suspect our high elevation and cooler temperatures generally prevent the populations of biting midges, which spread the disease, from building as high as in the prairies.

A nasty little virus. It generally takes up residence in the cells lining blood vessels. When the virus is ready, the cells rupture. And your veins and arteries all leak.

And you bleed out, from the inside.

Everywhere.

Literally.

If you're lucky, your circulatory system all kinda flushes at one time, and you pass out and die.

Others suffer individual organ failures, one or two at a time, until death finally arrives.

This doe appears to have been one of the luckier victims. Just fell down and died.

The eerie part was the apparent mourners, rising to high points surrounding me as I loaded up their doe's body.

Just watching.

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