10 ms·
There is actually a similar problem in the Northeastern United States. Deer are overpopulated (in my area 6x traditional level) because they have no predators
by ckinnan 9y ago
There is actually a similar problem in the Northeastern United States. Deer are overpopulated (in my area 6x traditional level) because they have no predators and hunting is restricted. The deer eat all of the hardwood saplings. In many mid-Atlantic forests there are very few 10-20 year old hard wood trees, they don't survive the deer.
- pizzetta 9y agoAnd the deer overpopulation also contributes to the Lyme disease tick problem.
- zaroth 9y agoWhich we have a perfectly good vaccine for but it was shelved purely out of FUD! http://legacy.wbur.org/2012/06/27/lyme-vaccine http://legacy.wbur.org/2012/06/27/lyme-vaccine
- ghaff 9y ago"Perfectly good" is an overstatement. Efficacy wasn't that great (80% or so) and there was some evidence of side effects. Overall, the vaccine should almost certainly have not been taken off the market but it's not a near-perfect vaccine vs. FUD story either. See, for example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870557/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870557/
- sliverstorm 9y agoYou may not need a higher efficacy, herd immunity does not require 100%. Chart of herd immunity thresholds for some diseases: https://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/assets/img/herd-immunity/image-02-large.jpg https://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/assets/img/herd-immunity/im...
- oh_sigh 9y agoLyme disease isn't passed from human to human so herd immunity is irrelevant.
- sliverstorm 9y agoMy mistake, I thought it was a vaccine for the deer.
- mark-r 9y agoAs I understand it the vector is mice, not deer. There's a correlation between mouse populations where the juveniles feed and Lyme disease outbreaks 2 years later when the adults latch onto humans.
- delbel 9y agolyme disease can be passed human to human as a std or the womb from mother to child
- dayofthedaleks 9y ago(citation needed)
- RickDT 9y agoLyme disease is NOT sexually transmitted. https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/faq/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/faq/index.html
- gbrown 9y agooh_sigh is correct, humans are a dead end host for lyme. It's primarily maintained in a mouse reservoir - the larval and nymph ticks feed on infected mice, and then the nymph and adult ticks can expose humans and deer. Deer are not really a big reservoir either, since mostly adult ticks feed on them, but they do move ticks around. Edit: you can actually try to vaccinate the reservoir, however: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24523510 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24523510
- Alex3917 9y ago> Overall, the vaccine should almost certainly have not been taken off the market It's no longer patented so nothing is stopping you from selling it if you think there's a market.
- ghaff 9y agoRead "should not" as it's unfortunate that potential legal issues around Lymerix were such that a vaccine was a losing business proposition. In general, human vaccines aren't a great opportunity for pharma companies--to the point where they're protected against liability for common vaccines.
- delbel 9y agoit was recalled because it was causing damages. the article is wrong. they found that body tissues has similar protein structures as the target for the vaccine, and left some people in wheel chairs. there are some developments for an improved vaccine but not out yet.
- toomuchtodo 9y agoThere's a really interesting article about how Yellowstone (a national park in the US) reintroduced wolves into the ecosystem, reducing the dear population, altering the ecosystem for the better: https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wolf-reintroduction-changes-ecosystem https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wolf-reintroduc... https://youtu.be/ysa5OBhXz-Q https://youtu.be/ysa5OBhXz-Q
- briholt 9y agoThen the farmers started shooting the wolves. Circle of life.
- nvlr 9y agoLike all things, there is another side to the story too. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/10/opinion/is-the-wolf-a-real-american-hero.html?_r=3 https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/10/opinion/is-the-wolf-a-rea...
- jlmorton 9y agoAnd as is often the case with science, here's another more recent study (2015, vs 2010 cited in the NY Times piece) which largely confirms the prior results noting Aspen regrowth. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/14-0712.1/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1890/14-0712.1/abstrac... The NY Times opinion piece is clickbaity for its absolutist declaration that the prior studies are untrue, based on one new study.
- Chardok 9y agoWent into that article ready to argue, but I had to quote this line from it: "But by insisting that wolves fixed a broken Yellowstone, we distract attention from the area’s many other important conservation challenges. The warmest temperatures in 6,000 years are changing forests and grasslands. Fungus and beetle infestations are causing the decline of whitebark pine. Natural gas drilling is affecting the winter ranges of migratory wildlife. To protect cattle from disease, our government agencies still kill many bison that migrate out of the park in search of food. And invasive lake trout may be wreaking more havoc on the ecosystem than was ever caused by the loss of wolves." Great read, thank you for posting!
- riot504 9y agoIt appears a simple solution of allowing hunting to occur would solve the problem. Why is hunting restricted?
- Kluny 9y agoI don't know what the case is in NE US, but in my town in British Columbia, the deer population is out of control in the metropolitan area, and every time a cull is mentioned, animal rights activists put a stop to it through loud and effective lobbying. It's quite irritating.
- NegativeLatency 9y agoI suppose wolves wouldn't be popular in a suburban environment either.
- brohee 9y agoCoywolf start to be a thing in those environments, a rare case of species created by human sprawl.
- irrational 9y agoThere are tons of coyotes in suburban environments though. I live smack dab in the middle of the suburbs and we have see coyotes all the time.
- bmurphy1976 9y agoThey live in NYC and Chicago: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/nyregion/that-howling-just-new-yorks-neighborhood-coyotes.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/nyregion/that-howling-jus... http://abc7chicago.com/archive/7945162/ http://abc7chicago.com/archive/7945162/
- ficklepickle 9y agoWe have an urban coyote population in Vancouver. It's very strange seeing a coyote in the city. I was 20 feet away, once. They are amazingly beautiful creatures.
- durgiston 9y agoThe NE also went from 30% forest to 70% open/farming land to 70% forest 30% open in about 100 years as agriculturalism gave way to industrialization. So that could also contribute to giving deer more cover/habitat. Also we killed all the wolves east of the Mississippi 50 years, and coyotes have yet to fill their niche.
- stcredzero 9y agoWolf sized coyotes that hunt in packs. Not sure I like that.
- kibwen 9y ago> The NE also went from 30% forest to 70% open/farming land to 70% forest 30% open in about 100 years as agriculturalism gave way to industrialization. Source? It would surprise me to see that many people voluntarily give up their farmland rather than, say, selling it to industrial farmers or real estate developers.
- bwanab 9y agoLot's of people gave up on farming hardscrabble New England in the early part of the 20th century which resulted in reforestation. Farming is making a comeback in niche products, but nothing at the previous scales. This article (sorry for the paywall) gives a good summary: http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/11/21/how-new-england-could-become-farmville-again/mwD67IVd69wF9iLJFzyuuO/story.html?event=event12 http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/11/21/how-new-england-....
- oh_sigh 9y agoYou're right - farmers generally didn't just let the fields lie fallow and become forested. Piece by piece, farmers sold their most marginal lands to housing developers, commercial ventures, etc.
- wmil 9y agoAway from the coasts there's plenty of space. If it was low yield farmland far from a population centre abandoning it makes sense.
- alistairSH 9y agoDo areas of the NE not allow seasonal suburban hunts? In VA, many local parks are opened to bow hunting through winter [1] in an effort to control the deer population. Signs posted all over parks to warn users [2]. 1- https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/living/wildlife/archery/archery-program.htm https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/living/wildlife/archery/archer... 2- http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bOyirfPSn0g/Vhv3vlBCh0I/AAAAAAAA0Qg/S7GIlIRpL5E/s1600/deer%2Bsign%2BHolmesRun2.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bOyirfPSn0g/Vhv3vlBCh0I/AAAAAAAA0Q...
- crzwdjk 9y agoWe have very similar signs in the Blue Hills Reservation just outside Boston, but the hours are rather more restricted (I think it's just Tuesdays). So it's not completely unheard of even in the relatively urban Northeast, probably because the deer situation really is getting that dire.
- IndrekR 9y agoReminds me the story of reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone [1]. Imapact was relatively large to the whole ecosystem with many unexpected surprises, mostly positive. [1] https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wolf-reintroduction-changes-ecosystem https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wolf-reintroduc...
- twothamendment 9y agoDeer can be quite the issue. There are a handful of cities in Utah (and I'm sure other places) who have opened up hunting to archers - within the city limits because the deer population is out of control. Back to the tree side of the story - I'm in NW Montana where trees are like weeds. In the spring I could find 1-2 fir tree seedlings per square inch and sometimes 4-5 in an inch! Despite having quite a few deer, forests are thick. I should rent some sheep to keep down the "weeds" we call trees.
- mljoe 9y agoI always felt it was kinda unreal that a tiny plant barely larger then the surrounding grass can become a huge tree given enough time of poor lawn maintenance. It doesn't even seem to take very long until tree saplings gain the ability to do some damage to your lawn mower.
- WalterBright 9y agoThere's a similar problem in the Olympic National Forest, but this time with mountain goats.