Editor:
B.C.’s proposed hunting regulations will allow owners of hounds to practise chasing and treeing cougars. Aside from cruelty to females and their kits, which remain with mothers for two years, it’s a bad idea for local health reasons. Sechelt is the B.C. Lyme disease hotspot, according to recent online tick study maps.
Columbia University doctors Brian Fallon and Jennifer Scotsky, in their 2018 book, Conquering Lyme Disease, stress the importance of Lyme disease prevention. Cougars are the top predator control on local deer, which too often hang out in local neighbourhoods carrying ticks infected with Lyme bacteria.
Deer are the preferred host for local black-legged ticks (Ixodes scapularis) that carry Borrelia burgdorferi, which causes Lyme disease. If an infected adult or nymph tick attaches itself and becomes engorged without being removed within 24 hours, a prominent 2-4 cm red bull’s eye rash usually develops.
If flu-like symptoms ensue, immediate medical help is urgent. Untreated with antibiotics and steroids, Lyme disease often develops into a chronic infection displaying arthritic symptoms accompanied by life-threatening cardiac and nervous system disturbances, often misdiagnosed as something else.
Be warned! A 2,000-2,500-tick egg cluster laid last October in leaf litter near your residence may soon be hatching. The larvae will search out the first of three blood meals by attaching to local white-footed mice, which often carry Lyme bacteria. Over the coming summer, tick larvae will slowly change into 1.5 mm nymphs.
Next year, infected nymphs will twice climb a bush and drop onto a child or any animal. Female ticks mature and mate to produce fertile eggs only if they find a deer, become engorged, drop off and lay eggs in your yard to complete the cycle.
Harassing cougars is not the answer. Cougars reduce our chances of becoming infected with Lyme disease by controlling deer numbers.
Joe Harrison, Garden Bay
