Duayne Forsberg is a deer hunter. He is also a hardwood flooring contractor from Harrisburg. Every fall he unloads tools from his work van and crams in camping gear, cold weather clothes, coolers and a couple of deer rifles. Then Forsberg steers onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike and heads west. At New Stanton he takes progressively narrower and hillier roads south and farther west -- as far west as he can go remaining within the Keystone State. All this to hunt deer.

Forsberg will be going west again this fall, even though he's read about locals finding 50 dead, sick and dying whitetails on his hunting grounds along the border of Greene and Washington counties. Biologists suspect the cause of the die-off is epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD), a viral infection spread by several species of small biting midges. EHD is common in white-tailed deer in the southeastern states and outbreaks occur there every year. The disease has occasionally appeared in southern Pennsylvania, most recently in 2002, not far from the current die-off. EHD cannot spread by contact between deer, only through the bite of an insect carrying the virus. Humans are not at risk from infection by midges.

"[The disease] won't keep me from going out there to hunt because I enjoy the hilly landscape so much. The habitat is there. It's great deer country," Forsberg said. "The bucks are getting nicer all the time due to the 4-point antler restrictions, and there is low hunter density after the first day. Some guys go west to Wyoming or Colorado. Me, I just go to Greene County, and a few dozen dead deer aren't going to stop me from hunting."

Rural residents in Richhill and Morris townships in Greene County and East Finley in Washington County began finding sick and dead deer about three weeks ago. Game Commission officials combed the area and found deer showing symptoms of EHD. Those signs, according to the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study Group, headquartered at the University of Georgia, include swelling of the head, neck and eyelids, swollen and discolored tongue, lethargy, lameness, and a loss of fear of humans. Internal organs can also be swollen and discolored.

"On several of the deer that I've examined, I did notice the swollen purple tongue, and one deer had swelling and bruising of the stomach," said Game Commission regional biologist Samara Trusso.

EHD is sometimes referred to as "bluetongue disease." The Game Commission sent samples from six deer -- three bucks, one doe and two fawns -- to the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease lab and to Penn State for testing.

"We don't know for sure yet that this is EHD," Trusso said. "I spoke to the labs on the phone yesterday and we'll have to wait at least another week for definite results."

Pinning down the cause of the deaths is complicated by the fact that the EHD virus deteriorates quickly in a dead carcass.

"We must get a sample within 24 hours of the deer's death or the virus is not detectable," Trusso said. "Still, we're trying to get a sense of how widespread this may be, so we are asking people to report dead deer even if the animal has been dead for some time. We are plotting these locations by GPS to see if we can discern some kind of geographic pattern."

Game Commission officers shot some sick deer in order to obtain fresh samples for testing.

"We're getting reports every day of individual deer or a couple of deer close together," she said. "We try and determine if these are all new deaths or if some of the deer are being reported multiple times. Based on our information, we're now somewhere between 75 and 100 deaths."

Trusso and other officials think that Forsberg is justified in sticking to his hunting plans.

"It is unlikely that a hunter will shoot a deer showing these symptoms," she said. "We're expecting that these infected deer will die off within a few days. EHD, if that's what this is, is not common here and this population has no way to develop immunity. To a large extent the duration of this situation depends on the weather over the next few weeks. If we get a good frost before the season, the vectors [including biting midges] will die off and the symptoms will disappear in the deer population."

Trusso doesn't expect the disease to impact the deer population for long. "Even with this mortality, the deer will bounce back," she said. "There are a lot of deer down there."

Eating the meat from an infected deer is not dangerous to humans, but animals showing symptoms are generally unfit for consumption due to fluid accumulation and their unappetizing appearance.

Game Commission press spokesman Jerry Feaser points out that hunters who shoot a sick deer can seek to have their deer tag replaced.

"We've always had a process to deal with that," Feaser said. "If a hunter kills a deer that's unfit for consumption, he should contact the PGC regional office and meet with an officer to have the deer examined. Of course, we do not issue replacement tags for a case where a hunter has not been diligent in retrieving his deer in a timely manner, only if the deer truly was unfit to eat at the time it was killed."

Feaser said the deer sent to diagnostic labs will also be tested for Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), which, if found in Pennsylvania, would present a far more serious problem.

Feaser encouraged residents and hunters who encounter sick deer to call the Game Commission Southwest Regional Office at 724-238-9523.

"Wildlife disease is a part of nature, and hunting is a way of being out in nature, so there is no conflict for me," Forsberg said. "I'm willing to take the word of the officials that there is no threat to my health. I'm just heading out there and going hunting like always.