Quote:
Originally Posted by Danzig
read the whole article. you'll see where they say further down that not just shorter winters and ticks are the issue. white tail deer are notoriously good at adapting to new areas, and i'd imagine the shorter winters they discuss, where april is more spring than winter, is helping white tail gain ground. other parasites are an issue as well.
so, the story here isn't just the tick, it's the overall change in an area contributing to changes in the animals that will be able to exist there. moose began to flourish years ago there after being gone, and now they're going backwards.
just like when you get to areas where white tail and mule deer cross paths, mulies and hybrids take over, and the white tails go down hill. muleys will breed with white tail does, creating hybrids..but leaving whitetail bucks with no one to mate with...so, they leave for greener pastures so to speak.
it's always been my understanding that ticks can't kill a healthy animal. there's a bundle of reasons why they're dying.
'Though winter tick is the main culprit, scientists are trying to unravel the bigger mystery of what else is contributing to the deaths. Moose are highly susceptible to several kinds of parasites, and it's likely that many factors are at play.
Bill Samuel, a retired biologist and ghost moose expert at the University of Alberta in Canada, says that pinpointing a single reason for the deaths is "wishful thinking."'
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I read the whole article - from the subhead - "As New England winters get warmer and shorter, ticks are driving a worrisome decline in a species that's crucial to the region's economy." - followed by the entire piece that blames global warming for the increase in tick population, which if you were to assume the *facts* cited, should have all died off this past winter.
But congrats on finding the one sentence in the last paragraph of the article that feigns to unring the bell they've been clanging the entire piece.
Typical lib drivel.