People with personal agendas assume the majority of people are ignorant and swallow their foolish nonsense without uttering a word or even questioning ridiculous reasoning and flawed logic.

Found in the Sacramento Bee, via PR Newswire, an article claims that the increase in ticks and tick-borne disease is on the rise in the United States due to forest fragmentation. The article describes fragmentation as: “large woodlands are split into smaller, more isolated sections for such uses as building roads, shopping centers or housing developments.”

Blaming forest fragmentation for increased ticks and disease might be an easier pill to swallow if the reasoning used to convince people that building anything is bad, made any real sense. Let’s first consider that this article, while it doesn’t come right out and say it precisely, implies that because of this so-called forest fragmentation and increased roads, chopped up forests, shopping centers and housing developments, there aren’t enough forests left for ticks to live in, therefore they are forced to live in our backyards.

Not that one chart of information is the answer to all tick problems, before a person makes such claims, perhaps they should consider the chart below. (Also found here.)

As compared to 1880, all 16 counties in the state of Maine have more forested areas in 1995. Many of those counties have remarkable increases. Consider Cumberland County, where Maine’s largest city, Portland, can be found. In 1880, 50% of the county was forested. Today that number is over 70%. Statewide, Maine was 62% forested in 1880 and in 1995 that number has grown to just shy of 90%. While this only speaks for Maine, which is heavily infested with ticks this season, one has to question a person’s conclusions about forest fragmentation and tick and tick-related disease growth.

But this isn’t all. The article states that with more people building and moving into the suburbs: “human and pet interaction with ticks and tick hosts naturally escalated.” No argument here. Here’s a quote from Michael W. Dryden, DVM, MS, PhD, a distinguished professor of parasitology at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Kansas State University:

There are clearly more ticks in more places than ever before, and a big part of that equation is forest fragmentation.

The fine doctor’s claim is that there are more ticks because there’s less forests, and forests are where ticks need to live and therefore with less forests, due to fragmentation, there are more ticks. Am I getting this right?

The article further states that: “The conditions created by forest fragmentation are conducive to the proliferation of ticks.” According to the article, ticks are forced to feed more on the blood of their hosts, i.e. deer and white-footed mice, “since many other species that ticks feed off of cannot survive in fragmented environments. So, both the disease-carrying animals and infectious ticks are left to multiply.”

This might help explain a claim that there are more disease-infected ticks but it certainly runs counter to the claim that there are more ticks because there’s less forest or that it’s broken up. Isn’t it contradictory to claim that fewer species can survive in fragmented forests while at the same time claiming that ticks and deer and mice are growing prolifically in fragmented forests?

Clearly forest fragmentation is not a “big part of the equation” in the growing number of ticks in this country. I would concur that perhaps the increase in diseased ticks comes from a claim that other species that ticks feed on don’t do well in fragmented forests. I don’t have any data to support or refute that claim.

That still leaves us with some answered questions, however. Why are there more deer living in people’s backyards in these so-called fragmented forests? There are a few factors to consider. People build beautiful homes and create a great walk-up restaurant of fine shrubbery and grasses for deer to feed on. Deer also are moving out of the forests to escape overblown populations of predators, i.e. wolves, coyotes, bears, lions, bobcat, etc. Deer aren’t stupid. They will go where the food is fine and the risk of being eaten alive by large predators is greatly reduced. That’s a fact.

With clearly more forests available today than 100 years ago, and the efforts by environmentalists and animal rights groups to protect predators, deer are drawn and forced into closer proximity with people. Naturally deer are a host of the ticks. They engorge themselves on the blood of deer and drop off and sometimes landing on people and biting them.

To claim that forest fragmentation causes more ticks is bogus and smells terribly of agenda-driven rhetoric. I call bull! If the concern is over people and pets, let’s get it right. Help people understand how to make their backyards non attractive to deer or other tick host species. In addition, educate people to the truths about how predators effect deer and other prey species and allow for the sensible control of those predators to create healthier forests and wildlife. Certainly disease-carrying ticks being transported around by deer does not for a healthy forest make.

Tom Remington

RMEF leaders say the population forecast defines an alarmingly short window for conservationists to help shape the heart of elk country before an additional 20 million people are living in the region by 2030.

““We have to work with an increasing sense of urgency,”” said RMEF President and CEO David Allen. ““We often talk about conserving wild places for our kids and grandkids to enjoy, and that’s powerful motivation. But we’re on the doorstep of landscape-scale changes that will affect current generations, too, if we don’t act quickly. Some of us elk hunters could lose our traditional way of life before we even have a chance to pass it on.””

According to the Census Bureau, states along and west of the Rocky Mountains will see an average of 28 percent growth by 2030. For all states eastward, the bureau anticipates an average growth rate of just 14 percent.

About 90 percent of all elk in North America occur in the rapid-growth states.

RMEF’s five ways to prepare:

1. Good Planning. Any profusion of poorly planned subdivisions, sprawl or related activity could accelerate loss, fragmentation and degradation of elk habitat. Consideration of these areas is increasingly important for developers, city planners, highway engineers, food and energy producers, etc. To help, RMEF contributes habitat data to mapping programs available to professionals who wish to identify and avoid critical areas of elk country, including:

Winter Range— – In much of the West, some of the most attractive tracts for development are lower elevation lands that also happen to be historic winter range for elk. Abundance and quality of winter range are limiting factors in the size of a region’s’ elk herd.

Calving Grounds – —Like winter range, elk calving grounds also are used traditionally. Once displaced from primary areas, pregnant cows will settle for secondary habitats that offer less cover, space, forage and water.

Summer Range— – Lush green summer range is vital to the health of elk as they nourish calves, evade predators and enter the rut. But research shows that extended drought and overgrown forests are negatively affecting some elk herds, especially in areas where predators are undermanaged.

Migration Corridors – —Highly mobile elk do best with unimpeded travel routes between habitat types.

2. Land Protection. Conserving strategic tracts of open space is a key to offsetting human population growth. Tools include purchasing land from willing sellers and conveying it to public ownership, land swaps and conservation easements. To date, RMEF has used these and more to help permanently protect over 1 million acres of elk country.

3. Habitat Stewardship. Managing protected habitat for optimum productivity is ever more important. Prescribe burning, treating noxious weeds, forest thinning to create early seral habitat, rejuvenating meadows and wetlands, improving riparian zones and adding guzzlers are among the ways to help habitat hold more wildlife. To date, RMEF has used these and more to help enhance over 5 million acres of elk country.

4. Predator Management. Much of elk country no longer resembles its original form. People made it smaller. Fire suppression made it thick and overgrown. Noxious weed infestations made forage problems even worse. Elk are amazingly adaptable but in certain areas they are proving unable to handle the added challenge of burgeoning predator populations. Calf survival rates are too low to sustain some herds for the future. Current and expected habitat conditions dictate responsible management of wolves, bears and lions on balance with other wildlife and human needs. RMEF is pressing this issue on several fronts.

5. Keep Hunting. With the anticipated population growth in the West, open space and opportunities for hunting could be reduced. Loss of hunters will translate to less wildlife management and less funding for conservation overall, which will compound all of the above problems. RMEF is prioritizing projects that enhance public hunting access and strengthening America’s understanding of the important conservation heritage of hunting.

RMEF membership, now at 184,135 and growing, has set records for four consecutive years. With continued support, RMEF will be positioned to keep making a difference over the critical 18 years to come.

For more information, visit www.rmef.org or call 800-CALL ELK.

The bill, which is sponsored by the radical animal rights group Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), triggered a strong outpouring of opposition from California sportsmen and women, plus sportsmen’s organizations, in the state and nationwide. The U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance (USSA) denounced this retaliatory wildlife management bill that was created when HSUS could not have a state game commissioner removed for his legal mountain lion hunt. As the bill moved forward from introduction and through the hearing process, hundreds of opponents wearing orange “NO on SB 1221” buttons also packed the corridors of the capital to let their Senators know they opposed this anti-hunting bill.

“The California Senate today chose retribution and revenge over sound science-based wildlife management,” explained Evan Heusinkveld, USSA’s director of state services. “Despite having a Fish and Game Commission explicitly designed to handle these questions free from the politics of the statehouse, the California Senate voted in favor of a hunting ban.”

USSA has been working with the Masters of Foxhounds Association, California Houndsmen for Conservation and the California Outdoor Heritage Alliance to defeat SB 1221.

Fast Facts on SB 1221

The bill would outlaw the use of hounds to hunt bears and bobcats.
Hunting bears and bobcats with hounds has been legal since the state formally organized a game commission and established game management and hunting laws.
Hounds are actually used in wildlife management practices and projects.
Hunters using hounds to pursue bears actually take fewer bears than is recommended by the state’s game department.
This bill is being pushed by the radical animal rights group—the Humane Society of the United States—the same group that has pushed anti-farming and puppy mill bills in California in the past.