Posted on 03/03/2017 10:34:37 AM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
Moose calves across northern New England are dying at alarming rates, and scientists believe that deadly parasites benefiting from shorter winters are the primary culprits.
Winter ticks have taken a toll on moose across Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, killing about 70 percent of moose calves. Winter ticks attach themselves to a single moose by the tens of thousands.
“It’s just off the charts; this should not happen with such frequency,” said Pete Pekins, chairman of the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of New Hampshire (UNH). “This is about a calf carrying 75,000 ticks that are draining it of blood.”
Winter ticks may be thriving in part due to the New England ecosystem being disrupted by global climate change. According to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Brett Anderson, the average winter temperature in Maine has climbed 4 degrees Fahrenheit between 1895 and 2015.
“This region of the country is one of the areas that’s warming the fastest in the lower 48 (U.S. states),” Anderson said.
(Excerpt) Read more at accuweather.com ...
guinea fowl. LOL They are hysterical birds and eventually they will be eaten by pretty much any predator but they love ticks. Wild turkeys also eat ticks and are not quite as stupid and loud as guineas.
Yes! Guineas! Lots and lots of guinea hens!
Blood sucking ticks are weather resistant in DC.
Coldest winter here since 1979 - down here and up somewhere else. Climate 101.
Anecdotally, how many of us really believe it is warmer where we live now than it used to be? I bet very few people would say that. They have been predicting catastrophe for two decades with nothing to show for it - the hockey stick never materialized no matter how much they fudge the numbers. CO2 is not a pollutant no matter how much they cry about it.
They are the “boy who cried wolf.”
Is there a moose ping list? There should totally be a moose ping list. And no, I’m not volunteering.
This ticks me off.
Actually, after better than half my life has passed, the percentages were explained to me. When they say that there is a 50 or 30 percent chance they mean the 50-30% of the forecasted area will receive precipitation.
I agree with you. I think the whole world is showing signs of climate change.
However, I think it does every single year, because the climate is constantly changing. The title of the article is a bit of a misnomer and has opinion injected right into it.
the title says, “Moose-killing ticks thrive in shorter winters due to climate change”.
What it should say is, “Moose-killing ticks thrive in shorter winters”.
If you go to google images or youtube and search tick infestation, you will see some truly amazing stuff.
Run, Bullwinkle, Run!
The average high temperature in Seattle this winter has been consistently around 5 degrees below normal, since the first week in December.
When Seattle is unusually cool or wet, the Midwest and Eastern USA are consistently warmer and dryer than normal.
I’ve had Lyme twice. There were about two or three years when my immune system killed ticks - they’d be on me but they’d be dead. I wasn’t using insecticides, repellents or treating dogs at the time.
I like to imagine a very active lot of macrophages streaming into the tick and eating it from the inside.
Am I a freak or could a vaccine possibly be developed to give immunity against a slow-feeding parasite?
Would they evolve to feed quicker and drop off before the immune system could react? Would they inject less into the bite to avoid triggering the immune system, or evolve a less provoking anti-coagulant?
Poor moose calves. One tick is uncomfortable enough.
Strange. For weeks the news has been reporting on the blizzards in the North East. When has there been any warm weather to bring out the ticks?
I believe it’s warmer here in NJ than when I was young. We used to have our first freeze at the end of September, now it’s late October. The ground used to freeze solid in early to mid-December, now I count on January 1.
This was certainly our warmest winter ever. Never got cold enough to stop the wintersweet blooming as it has every other year in the fifteen I’ve had it.
I don’t know that the summers feel warmer but the winters certainly are. (And I don’t mind at all.)
Spray a little DDT around.
No, thanks.
Keep for future use.
A short web search yielded the lowest December temperature in Caribou Maine for December, 2014, since 1972, but never let the facts get in the way of a good climate change scare story. Here’s a story about moose populations that addresses both tick problem and unseasonably cold winters, in other words, the WHOLE story:
http://www.pressherald.com/2016/02/25/cut-hunting-permits-24-so-public-sees-more-maine-moose-plan-urges/
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