An ongoing EHD outbreak has been confirmed in wild deer in Washington County and suspect cases are also being reported from northern Waukesha and Ozaukee counties. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources continues to catalogue all reports of potentially impacted deer. 
The DNR is tracking this outbreak through reported sightings of recently dead deer in the area.

Hemorrhagic disease is an acute, infectious, often fatal, viral disease that affects white-tailed deer and other hoofed animals. It is caused by either the bluetongue virus or the epizootic hemorrhagic disease virus. In areas where HD regularly occurs, death rates are lower, usually less than 25% of the population, in areas where the disease rarely occurs. In Wisconsin, death rates can be much higher and high-density deer herds may have higher mortality rates.

The disease was diagnosed for the first time in Wisconsin deer in the fall of 2002, when approximately 14 deer were found suddenly dead in Iowa County, according to the DNR. Between 2002 and 2011, blood samples from deer were collected and tested. The results did not find antibodies to the viruses that cause HD, which suggests that deer in Wisconsin are not routinely exposed to these viruses. Sporadic outbreaks of epizootic hemorrhagic disease occur in Wisconsin. 

The viruses that cause hemorrhagic disease do not infect humans.