There is some evidence that the modern, suburban/exurban habitat fosters tick and flea vectored diseases due to it being inhospitable to mid-sized predators.
Snakes are chopped into confetti by mowers as they hunt in tall grass and run over by motor-vehicles as they sun on streets.
Cats are kept indoors and/or declawed. Lovers of wildlife have been brainwashed to loath feral cats. It was not a hard sell because you only have to see a cat ambush one of your songbirds that you have been feeding to feel the hate.
Dens (often under brushpiles) for fox are bulldozed.
Senile trees with nesting cavities for kestrels and small owl species are cut down due to litigation risks.
It is difficult to establish a direct A ==> causes B relationship between rodent populations and tick-borne diseases because there are time-lags in the dynamics. Without an effective level of predation, a given species of rodent grows without "damping". Tick and flea populations grow. At some point diseases become widespread and crash the rodent population. Fleas and ticks abandon dead rodents and infest live ones. As the number of live ones continues to crash, the fleas and ticks migrate to pets and humans.
Link to a site with plans for nest boxes suitable for kestrels and small owls. Key points: 3" diameter entrance hole, 10" wide dimension lumber, mount it high or inaccessible to raccoons.
If you have free-range chickens running around they eat all of those nasty guys. The only ticks I got all summer was when I was out of the chicken circuit.---ken
ReplyDeleteGood points, but poisonous Mr. No Shoulders is dead to me... Just sayin...
ReplyDeleteNotice that fleas and ticks are primarily in the Eastern half of the country.
ReplyDeleteI understand them not extending past the dry line, but them getting rare near the Gulf coast is odd.
You are right about the rodent population's key roll in the tick life cycle. I have been using Thermacell Tick Control Tubes at my property. It is essentially a paper tube with cotton soaked in a chemical that sterilizes ticks. The rodents use the cotton as nesting material exposing the ticks. We also take dietary Sulphur when out hiking and camping. Everyone else around the camp fire (church youth group trip) is fussing about ticks here and there. We remained tick free in the same environment. I'll accept that I taste bad or is it that I have bad taste? Cannot be true of my sweet daughter and her twin brother.
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