‘Mutant deer’ with bubble skin sparks outbreak fears in US

After the strange sights of rabbits and squirrels with tumor-like growths hanging off their bodies, now deer with the same appearance sparked outbreak fears.

The deformed deer have been pictured across New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin during the last couple of months.

“A white-tailed deer in Pennsylvania. But what is the growth? Is it a mole? A boil? An injury?” one Reddit user asked earlier this month.

According to wildlife officials, the strange appearance at the deer is caused by a virus transmitted between deer in all parts of the US, causing a condition known as deer cutaneous fibroma or deer warts.

The virus is mainly spread by disease-carrying insects like mosquitoes and ticks, which pass on the blood of infected deer to healthy animals nearby. It can also be contracted by directly contacting a surface where the virus is wriggling on, or by rubbing against an infected deer. The virus is part of the same broad family of viruses that can affect humans, known as papillomaviruses, which target the skin and mucous membranes.

While humans can’t catch deer warts, the ticks deer carry can bring diseases like Lyme disease into areas where people live.

“These temperature changes are resulting in diseases that were never endemic in certain areas to become endemic,” Dr Omer Awan of the University of Maryland School of Medicine told The Mail.

“If you take a look at Lyme disease, for example, we’re starting to see it in areas that we never saw it before… places like southern Canada, northern states on the East Coast, like Maine,” he added.

According to Metro, the warts that pop on the deer’s neck, head, and forelegs don’t cause the animal any pain, but they may restrict their ability to see, eat, or walk. However, the lumps dry up and fall off on their own after a couple of months.

“…This deer in my yard. [The warts] got worse, then three months later, they were gone,” one X user posted on the social media.

While more people became aware of the virus causing deer cutaneous fibroma thanks to the social media, experts say it has been around US for many years, likely since the 1950s.