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Thousands of Michigan hunters are donning orange, hefting guns and hitting the woods as firearm deer hunting season starts today.

But another killer has been ahead of them. Epizootic hemorrhagic disease, or EHD, has a record number of outbreaks among the state's deer herd, according to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

Brent Rudolph, the deer and elk program leader at the Michigan DNR, said that before 2012, the record number of counties reporting EHD outbreaks was six.

"This year, we're at 30," he said.

Officials from the DNR have placed stricter limits on the number of antlerless deer permits given to hunters and are asking hunters to report deer that may have died from EHD, or that have hooves identifying them as having survived the disease in the past.

The local deer herd are veterans of a virus that has been in southwest Michigan for three years now. As a result they haven't been as hard-hit by the virus this year as other inland areas, said Steve Chadwick, wildlife regional supervisor in the DNR's Plainwell office.

"Along the lakeshore, expectations are similar to what they have been," Chadwick said. "Because the lakeshore counties had the disease in the past, it's possible that they had built up an immunity to the virus."

Chadwick is asking hunters to report harvested deer that have abnormal hooves a sign of the disease, which interrupts the hooves' growth.

The disease also attacks small blood vessels in the deer and causes extensive internal bleeding. It's caused by a virus is transmitted by a type of biting fly called a midge. The disease isn't a threat to humans.

Rudolph said the disease isn't new and usually crops up on years when wild winters allow the midge flies to thrive. A number of other factors this year, including the drought, made it an especially good year for the bugs.

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DNR: Lakeshore area herds not affected as much as inland areas by virus