Hunting Deer

Won’t Reduce Lyme Disease

To the Editor:

Pointing the finger at deer, and stating that they are responsible for Lyme disease and therefore need to be hunted, is not supported by scientific fact (“An Issue Fraught With Emotion,” 11/28/08”).

Science underscores why hunting won’t work to control this devastating disease.

 The Lyme disease-causing tick (Ixodes scapularis) is carried by over 40 bird species and all mammals. Mice and small rodents are primary hosts for the immature stages of the tick, which are the most infectious to people. Songbirds even play a role in bringing ticks to new areas. You just can’t stop a multihost disease by killing some members of one host.

It turns out that ticks thwart deer reduction efforts by switching to other hosts or concentrating at higher numbers on the remaining deer. According to studies, even when the deer population is reduced heavily — as much as 86 percent — the reduction in tick numbers is insufficient to diminish their reproductive cycle.

Ironically, researchers warn that hunting actually increases public safety risks temporarily because ticks will still begin “questing” for a large host in the spring and are more likely to end up on humans and dogs if deer numbers have been reduced.

The other problem with trying to control deer numbers through hunting is that deer numbers bounce back, as repeatedly cited during a Smithsonian Institute conference on deer overabundance. Deer are very prolific, and their high reproductive rate can quickly compensate for any declines in their population. How many fawns they have is tied to their nutritional environment. After hunting, there’s more food for the remaining deer, which means more twins and triplets born. Hunting creates, in essence, a yo-yo effect.

Advocates of hunting point to the few cases on islands where deer have been virtually eliminated or reduced to artificially low numbers in a contained environment. This type of scenario is not possible in Connecticut at large, nor would anyone be safe in their own backyards if such large-scale hunting were attempted.

It’s even more futile to try controlling the disease with public bow-hunting. Bow-hunting is not only one of the most inefficient hunting methods, but it also involves a high crippling rate — as much as 40–60 percent of the arrow-struck deer may be crippled but not killed, a sight which is very traumatizing to adults and children alike.

The good news is that new technologies exist which dramatically reduce tick numbers, such as the 4-Poster and Maxforce bait box systems which attract, respectively, deer, and mice to bait stations where a tick-killing product is applied to their bodies.

The bottom line is that hunting deer will not lesson people’s risk of Lyme disease. Let’s not deceive ourselves.

Sincerely,

Laura Simon, MS

Field Director, Urban Wildlife Program

Humane Society of the United States

30 Hazel Terrace, Woodbridge                              November 28, 2008