In California, the local deer population is experiencing a problem most commonly associated with kindergartners: a mysterious scourge of exotic lice from Europe and Asia have been found on deer and elk from the San Francisco peninsula to the Sierra foothills, giving the animals haggard coats or causing them to go almost completely bald.
Researchers have sampled over 600 scruffy-pelted deer across the state and attributed the hair loss problem to Bovicola tibialis — a species of bloodsuckers that normally feeds on fallow deer in Europe and Asia. The Chronicle reports:
It's a lousy situation for the besieged deer, [Department of Fish and Wildlife Biologist Greg] Gerstenberg said. The bloodthirsty insects multiply in the winter and reach their peak population in the spring, right about now. Deer normally have fewer than two dozen native lice on them, but Gerstenberg has been finding thousands of lice on the deer in Tuolumne."In places on the body you almost can't see the skin, there are so many," he said. "That's part of why we are concerned. These are biting lice. There are behavioral changes with an infection like that. The deer are biting and scratching, which is why we think it might be resulting in the hair loss."
Embarrassing hair loss aside, the lice are tearing through the deer populations by spreading internal parasites and causing a host of other health issues. The usually alert and doey-eyed creatures are less attentive when they become scratchy and feverish, making them easy targets for cougars and coyotes.
As for how the foreign lice made its way to the Sierra, researchers say that's still a mystery. Another type of lice migrated down from Alaskan mule deer to local deer in Mendocino and Humboldt counties in Northern California, but the current scourge must have come from elsewhere. In the past fallow deer that have been known to carry the lice were introduced in California for game hunting, but they have been all but eradicated in recent years.
For a closer look, the local Sacramento Fox affiliate has video, literally going over the deer with a fine tooth comb.
