Ah, I'm not saying it is mice that are the vectors, but that mice are a food that keep Deer Ticks alive in the summer months. Also, from the conclusion of your

Ah, I'm not saying it is mice that are the vectors, but that mice are a food that keep Deer Ticks alive in the summer months. Also, from the conclusion of your NIH article: >Despite a decrease in EM rash incidence, however, we did not find a statistically significant effect of the deer hunt on EM rash incidence, probably due to LD reporting issues, study design limitations, and the small population size.