In November 2022, 14-year-old Cooper Courtright of Louisiana killed a 5½-year-old buck whose ears were his most prominent and memorable feature. Both drooped to the sides of the buck’s head as if they were pinned straight down. Cooper’s dad Jess contacted the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, who shipped the buck’s head immediately to the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study at the University of Georgia vet school. SCWDS recently released a report on their examination. Here’s a summary of what we now know about this strange buck.
Doe or Buck?
Jess told me he and Cooper first saw the deer on trail-camera images taken in late January 2022, but the buck had already shed both antlers, so he and Cooper thought it was a doe. It wasn’t until Cooper killed the buck in November that they realized it was the same deer in the photos – and not a doe at all. “He looked to be in good shape,” said Jess. “Everything seemed normal except for the ears. If not for the ears, we would never have asked questions.”
The external structures of a deer’s ear, called pinnae, get their form and shape from cartilage. I’ve seen deer with one drooping ear, and that’s probably caused when the cartilage is permanently damaged in a fight. I’ve even seen does with bent or broken ears. Does fight with each other by flailing their front hooves, and it’s easy to see how a hoof strike could break an ear. But a deer with a matched set of drooping ears is much more unusual.
Scientific Examination
Disease experts at SCWDS examined the Louisiana buck’s ears externally, internally and microscopically. External signs indicated both ears were firmly folded and thickened into the downward position permanently. They determined the condition was chronic – the buck had been this way for a long time, possibly even born that way. They also found several adult deer ticks attached around the openings to the ear canals.
What’s more, both ears were clearly diseased. SCWDS found signs of chronic inflammation, including pus, dead and decaying tissue, and scar tissue. A close-up photo of these signs was included in the SCWDS report, but I’ll spare you from that visual. “These chronic inflammatory and degenerative changes, especially in the cartilage, led to the permanent ear deformity in this case,” said the report written by Tori Andreasen, Dr. Alisia Weyna, and Dr. Nicole Nemeth.
An internal swab found a “heavy growth” of the bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a common suspect in ear infections in animals and humans. “In humans with weakened immune systems, severe and debilitating ear disease can result from infection,” said the report. “If this deer was similarly weakened, it may have been predisposed to bacterial infection.”
Diagnosis?
Due to the fact this buck had been suffering with these wilted ears for such a long time, and there were so many different indicators of disease, SCWDS found it impossible to point to a likely cause. Instead, they suggested several potential explanations:
- The buck may have developed an internal bacterial ear infection that led to disease throughout the external structures.
- In the reverse, the buck might have suffered wounds to the external part of both ears that damaged blood vessels and led to bacterial infection.
- Ticks could have played a role. Severe tick infestations have been associated with drooping ears in some domestic livestock. A past infestation of ticks in both of the buck’s ears could have started the tissue damage, leading to infections.
- Finally, there’s the possibility the buck was born with deformed ears, and their abnormal shape opened the door to infection.
Unfortunately, we’ll never know which is to blame. Nevertheless, I want to commend Cooper and Jess Courtright of Louisiana for reporting the buck to their state wildlife agency, which followed up by investigating. In this age of CWD and other threats to deer population health, it’s important for all of us deer hunters to serve as extra eyes and ears for our wildlife professionals. Reporting strange or sick deer to your state wildlife agency is never a waste of time.