Keep an eye on your scouts!

[Stosh]

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2017/06/06/lyme-disease-like-illness-that-can-kill-15-minutes-after-bite-reported-in-maine.html

[MrBob]

Great... one more thing to terrify helicopter parents into caging their children indoors this summer.

[TAHAWK]

Polio - vaccine - now.  But in the 1940's an early 1950's there was no vaccine.  Parents were scared to death.  Kids died or were crippled for life.

 

This virus - none.

 

Aren't you being a little hard on parents?

[T2Eagle]

"agencies across the nation brace for a particularly high-population tick season"

 

I can attest to this, in Northern Michigan last week I hit double digits ticks on me --- and I was wearing long pants.

[scoutldr]

It was recently reported in my area (Virginia) that there is an increase in a tick borne virus that causes a lifelong allergy to red meat.

[Col. Flagg]

"agencies across the nation brace for a particularly high-population tick season"

 

I can attest to this, in Northern Michigan last week I hit double digits ticks on me --- and I was wearing long pants.

 

 

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2017/03/13/lyme-disease-soars-in-michigan-as-tick-populations-grow.html

[Eagledad]

I spend a lot of my time as a youth in the woods and I never saw a tick until the 1980s. I don't know the facts, but I also never saw a deer until the 1980s and now they are a road hazard.

 

Barry

[Col. Flagg]

We did camp in CO two years ago. Two weeks before we leave there's a youth who died from plague (yes, that plague) which he got on his farm from a flea bit. There were also a few Lyme disease reports in that county. Had two moms cancel their kids from camp that summer. 

 

Our Crew spent that week hiking the Roosevelt National Forest. Didn't see a tick, a flea or a mosquito. Did see bear, elk, moose and a ton of other wildlife.

 

The irony: The two kids that stayed home got flu...in the summer...staying at home all week.

[fred johnson]

It was recently reported in my area (Virginia) that there is an increase in a tick borne virus that causes a lifelong allergy to red meat.

 

At first I thought this was a joke about democrats.  Then I read it on NPR and MSNBC.  So it must be true.

 

Okay.  Seriously.  It creeps me out that this is true.  

[T2Eagle]

I spend a lot of my time as a youth in the woods and I never saw a tick until the 1980s. I don't know the facts, but I also never saw a deer until the 1980s and now they are a road hazard.

 

Barry

 

In 1930 the US white-tailed deer population was down to about 300,000. Today, estimates of how many there are range as high as about 30 million. That’s a 1,000-fold increase in less than 100 years."http://www.koryoswrites.com/nonfiction/white-tailed-deer-overpopulation-in-the-united-states/

 

Among many other factors, the most notable is that we have turned most of the eastern US into deer heaven. Deer are an "edge" species that thrives along the edges of woodlands and meadow, or as we now call it, suburbia.

[Stosh]

The flower gardens of suburbia are prime feeding areas for deer.

 

The two road kills right in front of my house allowed me to fill my freezer full of venison and I got to sit and look for a trophy buck last season and none of the 17 that walked by fit the bill.  I live on 9 acres in a metropolitan hunting area in the state.

[RememberSchiff]

 

I spend a lot of my time as a youth in the woods and I never saw a tick until the 1980s. I don't know the facts, but I also never saw a deer until the 1980s and now they are a road hazard.

 

Barry

 

In 1930 the US white-tailed deer population was down to about 300,000. Today, estimates of how many there are range as high as about 30 million. That’s a 1,000-fold increase in less than 100 years."http://www.koryoswrites.com/nonfiction/white-tailed-deer-overpopulation-in-the-united-states/

 

Among many other factors, the most notable is that we have turned most of the eastern US into deer heaven. Deer are an "edge" species that thrives along the edges of woodlands and meadow, or as we now call it, suburbia.

 

My understanding.

 

Ticks first get the Lyme virus from mice and then drop off and find other warm body - another mouse, dog, deer, human. I have read that rodent population is up too - mice, squirrels, rats,..

 

A lot of deer means more hosts to grow tick population. Deer and other tick-infected species traveling miles to find fragmented food sources spreads ticks geographically.

[TAHAWK]

White tail population down 4,000,000 from 2013-2016.  Worse around here (NE Ohio) where a boom in Coyote population is leading to heavy predation of fawns and even adults.  

 

Deer harvest in Ohio peaked in 2005.

[Stosh]

A cougar tagged in Wisconsin died in Connecticut.  A wolf has been documented to have traveled from Ely MN to Green Bay to Madison before making it's way just east of the Twin Cities and returning to Ely where it was shot and killed.  A second grade class in Ely purchased a GPS tracking collar and had the DNR put it on for them.  They tracked it's movement for a year every day they would get a GPS reading on it's location. 

 

A moose was hit by a car a few years back just west of Des Moines, IA. 

 

Ever wonder why Lyme's Disease started in Connecticut and is heavily populated in WI and MN?  .... and for a long time, not in between?

Edited June 8, 2017 by Stosh

[Back Pack]

"Cougar tagged in Wisconsin".

 

[snicker]