This is an interesting read. Posted by MADDOG (Member # 18) on :
Makes total sence.
MADDOG
Posted by Keebler (Member # 12673) on :
- Foxes may kill some lyme carriers but they are also carries themselves as they transport ticks, too.
Birds fly. Critters scamper. Ticks travel free.
Amazing that few ever connect the dots, eh? The poor deer have been getting all the blame for too long. -
Posted by Muscle Car55 (Member # 34707) on :
I just saw this today too, bunch of articles posted about the foxes.
Great article and no doubt that this definitely increased Lyme. But honestly there is no way you can blame it on one animal. A lot of changes happening to the ecosystem that make Lyme worse.
It doesn't even make sense for the origin or spread from state to state, shows up in Connecticut and spreads because fox population is down in Connecticut back in the 70s. No not buying it. Lot more involved, and possibly more of a sinister thing going on.
But hey, maybe increasing the fox population might control it.
Posted by Maryland Mom (Member # 2043) on :
I found this study very interesting, and feel it gives credence to my own experience.
My family and I lived in a home badly infested with white-footed mice when we all became infected (the house had been vacant for several months when we bought it, overrun with critters of all kinds).
We were in an area of 2-10 acre lots that had been created and developed a few years before from a large piece of farmland, and our lot was adjacent to a wetlands preserve.
Within a year after moving into the home, we all started getting sick, and were eventually all diagnosed with Lyme. No matter what precautions we took when going outdoors, my kids and I kept getting reinfected!
My kids became patients of Dr J, and when he studied repeated WBs he had done on them, he said they were somehow getting reinfected, and developing new coinfections.
Dr. J told me years ago that the white-footed mice may be the most likely carrier in our case. We became very aggressive with eradicating the mice in our home, and finally stopped getting reinfected as soon as the mice were gone.
Makes perfect sense that when natural predators are removed from the food chain, things will go awry.
Posted by poppy (Member # 5355) on :
Probably more to it than just fox decline, because raptors such as hawks and owls eat mice, and so do coyotes.
Posted by Maryland Mom (Member # 2043) on :
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