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Deer ticks and Lyme disease go hand-in-hand in some places. But you can’t always put the blame on Bambi. Because new research shows that the incidence of Lyme disease tracks less with the abundance of deer than it does with the disappearance of foxes. The study is in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [Taal Levi et al., "Deer, predators, and the emergence of Lyme disease"]
To see where foxes come in, you have to look at the tick life cycle.
When deer ticks are young, they feed on small mammals like the white-footed mouse. It’s from infected rodents that the ticks pick up the bacteria that cause Lyme disease.
Foxes, of course, prey on mice and other small mammals. So fewer foxes means more mice, and potentially more disease.
To come up with that connection, researchers modeled the relative contributions of various animal populations in areas where Lyme disease is rife. And they found that, in New York State, for one, the incidence of Lyme could be directly predicted by the dearth of foxes.
The foxes were pushed out by coyotes, which have been on the rise since New York lost its wolves. Which were driven away by humans. Who now get bit by ticks.
—Karen Hopkin
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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2 Comments
Add CommentWouldn't it just make sense that if your area is over populated with ticks, or fleas, and you don't have enough foxes to take care of the small rodents, that you spray your area with tick kill. Where I live, D&R puts out rabies medicine to prevent the animals from getting rabies and they spray for mosquitoes, fleas and ticks. The people sprinkle flea and tick kill over their yards so their pets won't get bitten and bring the insect inside, and they make sure there is no standing water around or on their property so mosquitoes can't breed. Maybe someone should tell New York and other states that do not know how to protect themselves against these insects how to keep them away.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this...there are jet fuel components in women's breast milk. these chemicals that you speak of, are not the answer. It has been a north american tradition to go the corporate chemical route on every problem. these solutions have consequences that we don't intend, and dont yet understand.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswhat's better (and likely the purpose of the podcast) is to respect, and understand, the existing equilibrium: humans kill wolves as they are a nuisance, but had we maintained them, they keep the system in check.
when you are rebuilding a system from the ground up (which is what we north americans do instead of letting the existing system work its magic), you have to spend about 100 years making errors, causing unintended deaths or birth defects or handicaps (chemical - unkown causes).
Also, this gets people in the mind of not killing apex predators - as any animal that is a 'threat' to us, is on the verge of extinction (sharks are in danger; we hunt them because of the movie Jaws... grizzly bears, wolves, etc). All these animals are part of a food web that has been in balance for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. Now That We Know This Stuff... ???