Found skull of a deer (Obtained via Creative Commons)

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to experience a zombie apocalypse? I know I have. Since the 1930s American cinema has portrayed in zombies different ways to a huge American viewership. However the genre was made famous in 1968 with “Night of the Living Dead”. Since then the world has seen all sorts of different zombie movies, tv shows, and video games, giving the Zombie genre a market within popular culture.

America has seen a lot of Zombies throughout the years with things like “The Walking Dead”, “Zombieland”, and “Call of Duty: Zombies” just to name a few; an important distinction though is that America has never seen real ones, or at least we hadn’t until earlier this month when word got out about the “Zombie deer virus”.

Zombie deer virus has been seen all over the country, including recent cases in Virginia, and while that sounds pretty apocalyptic, it’s nothing new.

“Zombie deer virus” known by the CDC as “Chronic wasting disease” was first seen in colorado in the late 1960s, is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, or a progressive, invariably fatal, condition that is linked to prions (misfolded proteins in the brain) and affect the brain (encephalopathies) and the nervous system of many animals, including but not limited too: Deer, elk, rats, and most frighteningly, humans.

“Its possible for [the disease] to mutate and it if a mutation occurs then it would be possible [for the disease to cross species]. Like mad cow disease, where if you ate the meat of a diseased animal you could have the brain problems” Chemistry teacher Kim Richardson said.

In practical terms deer infected with the virus become lethargic, disoriented, and don’t respond regularly to humans. Physically, Chronic wasting disease looks horrible, and deers infected truly do look like zombies, “it actually eats holes in the animals brain,” KCCI-TV’s Max Diekneite reports.

In conclusion, while the Zombie Deer Virus looks and sounds very scary, you don’t have to worry about killing or getting killed by zombie Bambi.

If you’re still scared you could maybe just avoid venison.