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This article and many others focuses on Lyme in the northeastern US, but Lyme has spread to the interior and the west coast. It's in up to 25% of ticks in many western states and around the west coast. I find ticks constantly on dogs after taking walks/hikes in California/Oregon/Washington, even if they have tick/flea treatment. I've had one embedded in me that was so small and flush it looked just like a new tiny mole had appeared, it wasn't until it squirmed around after being brushed over a few times that I realized it was a tick. They can be quite a challenge to remove properly even with tweezers. The tick population has surged dramatically in the western states and east coast, largely from an overpopulation of deer, mice, and other rodents, and an increasing lack of predators to those common tick carriers. Ultimately we to allow predators to return to the natural landscape and in abundance, with birds of prey, foxes, coyote, etc to take out the mice and smaller carriers, and we many more large predators, bear, wolf, mountain lion, human hunters included, to reduce the dramatic deer overpopulation. And yes, thinning of known tick carriers like mice and deer is demonstrably proven to work. http://www.ct.gov/caes/lib/caes/documents/publications/fact_... |