Record reports of a viral disease affecting white-tailed deer seemed to have minimal impact on the 2007 hunting seasons in Indiana, as hunters harvested 124,427 deer.

"The big thing for me was that number," said Chad Stewart, deer research biologist for the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. "We were guessing the harvest was going to be down a lot more than it was this year."

Stewart provides details of the '07 season in an annual report that includes a county-by-county breakdown of the deer harvest. To obtain a complete copy of the report, go to dnr.IN.gov/press/2007_Deer_Season_Report.pdf

A widespread outbreak of Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHD), a viral disease transmitted by biting flies, had Stewart anticipating a significant drop from the 125,381 deer harvested in '06. Instead, hunters recorded the third-best season on record and were within 1,100 of the all-time mark of 125,526, set in 2005.

"That's not to say (EHD) didn't affect harvests in some parts of the state," Stewart said. "The southwestern part of the state had a noticeable drop in harvest level, but that seems to have been made up elsewhere in the state."

That "elsewhere" was primarily in the central and west-central areas of Indiana, especially in a handful of counties that experienced EHD in 2006.

"Where EHD affected counties like Clay, Fountain, Parke, Putnam, Sullivan and Vermillion in 2006, (numbers) all bounced back in a big way in 2007," Stewart said. "In most cases, antlered harvests were back up to 2005 levels."

Stewart said that's potentially good news for such counties as Crawford, Daviess, Dubois, Knox, Martin, Pike, Spencer and Crawford, where harvest levels dropped at least 20 percent from '06. He said deer that survive EHD exhibit an immune response that can be passed on to their young, providing protection if the disease occurs the next year.

Other highlights of the '07 season included the success hunters had in harvesting female deer in the latter part of the firearms season and the muzzleloader season, which Stewart said plays an important role in controlling deer populations.

"Antlerless deer are shot at a 2-to-1 margin over the last nine days of the firearms season, and 80 percent of the harvest during the muzzleloader season is antlerless, with the majority of those being does," Stewart said. "Without those efforts, the deer herds in some areas could rise dramatically."

Steuben was the top county for the third straight year with hunters harvesting 3,754 deer. Switzerland County was second at 3,259, followed by Kosciusko (3,003), Franklin (2,950), and Marshall (2,854).