Selectmen: Promote Tick-Borne Disease Education First,

Deer Reduction If Warranted

By John Voket

The Board of Selectmen this week backed the idea of aggressively promoting a program of public health education to help Newtown residents understand and prevent tick-borne diseases.

Prioritizing a staged plan to increase human awareness also includes partnering with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) with an eye on identifying residents’ opinions about deer, hunters’ efforts, quantifying the actual deer population, along with examining landscape and open space patterns that contribute to the deer overpopulation.

The first of several discussions took place during the December 19 selectmen’s meeting, which also included commentary from two members of the town’s Tick-Borne Disease Action Committee. That volunteer panel recently completed a voluminous report — nearly two years in the making — that offers 46 ideas about how the town could reduce the high level of Lyme disease and other cohort conditions tied to tick bites in the community.

A spirited dialogue played out between First Selectmen Pat Llodra, Selectmen Will Rodgers and James Gaston, and former committee chair Michelle McLeod and committee member David Shugarts, who has also represented Newtown on the Fairfield County Deer Alliance.

Mrs Llodra said she was acting on Mr Shugarts’ suggestion when she wrote to the state environmental agency asking for help to return Newtown’s deer population to a stable and sustainable 10 to 12 per square mile. Today, DEEP estimates Newtown’s yards, woods, and open spaces contain between 70 and 105 deer per square mile.

Mrs Llodra said that in a response from DEEP Deputy Commissioner Susan Frechette, she learned that Newtown is potentially second or third on the list to receive agency support. The first selectman said a current partnership is ongoing in Redding, and New Canaan has also requested DEEP assistance in identifying and managing its deer population.

Redding Project Template

The Redding project is expected to yield a template for other towns to use or modify along with partnering DEEP representatives, but the basic four points of that template would be the resident and hunter surveys, a targeted deer population estimate, and examination of landscape and open space contributors.

Mrs Llodra said the town could either wait for exclusive assistance when the DEEP is done with its work in New Canaan, or Newtown could work to develop baseline data in partnership and at the same time as New Canaan. The DEEP would also consider launching a cooperative regional effort encompassing Brookfield, Bethel, and Newtown.

The first selectman said she was initially motivated at the idea of working sooner rather than later on the effort, by partnering with New Canaan, but suggested Ms McLeod consult with other members of the temporarily deactivated committee to gauge which option is most preferable to those volunteers.

Reacting to Mr Gaston’s observation that some of the nearly four dozen options to reduce tick-borne disease were “very expensive,” Ms McLeod reminded him that the committee was charged to compile ideas without regard for cost, and added that such an overwhelming number of tick-borne disease cases will neither come cheap or simply.

“It will be a concerted effort,” Ms McLeod said.

Besides working with DEEP on the deer issue, Mrs Llodra returned to the idea of ratcheting up a community education campaign.

“If the state is developing a template that can be meaningfully applied, it still doesn’t address education,” Mrs Llodra said, adding that the town has not impressed upon residents that 75 percent of tick borne-illness comes from their own back yard.

BLAST Program Effective

Ms McLeod said that the local Health District’s education campaign, BLAST, was determined to be most effective in preventing tick-borne illnesses if it is followed. She also suggested a big publicity push in March for early spring spraying to reduce or eliminate the tiny nymphs that can transmit Lyme disease virtually undetected.

The committee chairman also suggested creative programs in the school system that might include high school theater participants performing skits tied to tick bite prevention for lower grades.

“Kids are impressed by older students, and they pay attention,” Ms McLeod said.

Selectman Rodgers said while the committee report did not separate the deer issue from the tick-borne disease concern, coming to a decision on solving local deer overpopulation problem will never happen until there is a general public perception that there is a tick problem.

Mr Shugarts countered that according to data in the committee’s report, 94 percent of female ticks studied took their last blood meal from a deer.

But Mr Gaston reiterated that without baseline data that could come from DEEP, the only thing the town could realistically focus on in the short-term is prevention measures.

Mr Rodgers asked Ms McLeod to contact as many committee members as possible to determine whether the town should “put the deer problem on the back burner” while converging on other more easily agreed upon prevention measures.

“Bambi is no friend of mine,” Mr Rodgers said. “I come down on the side of deer culling. But I don’t see any in-depth pursuit of this helping the process.”

Mrs Llodra said she agreed and would welcome working with DEEP to develop a statewide model for all communities to try and address the tick-borne disease issue.

She said up to now, “The state’s role has been less than exemplary in helping us address the problem.”