Ticks are spreading, and down in the article, you guessed it, the cause is speculated to be global warming aka climate change.
From CBS in Charlotte, worry over a one year increase. Excerpts:
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — In the trees and grasses of the South, there are a growing number of unwanted visitors that at best are an itchy nuisance and at worst can carry debilitating diseases: Ticks.
Public health officials say that numbers of reported cases of diseases like Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever are not yet alarming and have not yet shown a definitive trend upward from a national perspective.
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“Ticks are spreading, but usually not like wildfire,” said Joseph Piseman, chief of tickborne disease activity for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “The spread is kind of slow but sure.”
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The Lone Star tick carries a flu-like infection, and Apperson said the main reason for its emergence in the region is a larger population of deer for it to feed upon. Scientists aren’t so sure about why other species are invading, however.
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For the most part, scientists are not yet examining why the populations have been spreading, said entomologist Bruce A. Harrison, who studied ticks for the state of North Carolina for nearly 20 years. He hypothesized it may be at least in part caused by climate change. As temperatures change, animals that are food for ticks migrate — often because the plants they eat are now growing elsewhere.
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While the CDC hasn’t reported a spike in tick-borne diseases, officials in North Carolina have noticed an increase this year compared to a year earlier. Rocky Mountain spotted fever cases are up 50 percent this year, said state public health veterinarian Carl Williams. And while there typically wasn’t a single positive Lyme disease test 10 years ago, now there are a few each year, Mekeel said.
Full story: http://charlotte.cbslocal.com/2012/05/28/new-species-of-ticks-spreading-disease-across-southeast/
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Like with tornadoes, we now have doppler radar, and storm chasers and live reporting, now that we have a national database for Lyme disease and constant reminders in the news, is it any wonder there is an increase in cases?
Story submitted by WUWT reader George Ellis
It couldn’t possibly have something to do with large numbers of people who routinely travel from one part of the country to another? No, it must be global warming.
There’s also the increasing propensity for the ignorant to “get in touch with nature”.
‘…numbers of reported cases of diseases like Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever are not yet alarming and have not yet shown a definitive trend upward from a national perspective…’
And yet we are told to be alarmed…
Lyme disease is no joke, it is a very debilitating disease if not treated quickly. I know at least a dozen people who have been infected. As to GW, I doubt it matters much, ticks are very robust creatures and are only dormant in the depths of winter it seems. I went hiking on a cold day in November and found four ticks on my boots. They’ve always been in PA so I can’t imagine they haven’t always been in the Carolinas.
Why do they never check the local climate stats? In the southeast US, there has been an insignificant temperature decline since 1895. Spring temperatures are also slightly down, and the summer trend is at 0.00. Precipitation is mostly unchanged over the same period.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/regional.html
if ticks main “predator” fire is suppressed, then there will be a trophic cascade.
I’m not convinced ticks feed solely on animals. We had ticks overrun our beach-type land on Lake Superior about ten years ago and there are hardly any animals there at all. I could pick and squash dozens and sometimes hundreds of ticks off a trail any time I wanted. I figured they must have been feeding off of some plants because the wildlife wouldn’t support such a population. Anyways we eventually had enough and threw a little bit of tick insecticide dust around the areas with the highest tick population, which was only like 50 feet of trail, and in two years they totally disappeared.
Anecdote: I never got a tick here in central Virginia (a couple decades experience) until last summer I got three. This spring I have gotten about a dozen, mainly big dog ticks but also little deer ticks. My habits have not changed. So, I believe the tick population has changed.
The stink bugs also arrived here (from somewhere in Asia) about the time this started. Do they eat something that eats ticks?
As someone who had the Lyme disease, I blame too large deer populations (I was infected on a small island with a lot of deer) – we’ve killed the predators and hunting is too limited.
and more people are taking to the outdoors.
I live out in the middle of 100 acres+ of field and forest in Mississippi. Bugs have been a problem forever, and not just ticks and chiggers. But there are fixes for it. Chemical warfare. Love it, use it. 🙂
And it has absolutely nothing to do with the out of control deer population. Yeah, right.
Has anyone who worked on this report on ticks considered the effect of bird populations on the insect world? Some birds are known to feed on ticks that make their home on beasts’ backs, thus controlling the tick infestations while other birds scour the ground for insects to feed on themselves and their chicks too.
Last I heard, birds were being killed by wind turbines…………………
Based on the information provided in the story, it is possible to hypothesized that Cliamte Change is caused by these ticks … both are equally baseless.
Its known as Lyme disease because it was first noted in Lyme CONNECTICUT! Climate change is casing ticks to spread South? How exactly does that work?
Ticks emerge every Spring. In some years following a mild Winter there will be more. After the “devastating” mild Spring we’ve had, I expected more ticks. No surprise.
“Wait til the skeeters show up next month . . “
Whoops causing, not casing
You don’t have to go more than few steps into nature to pick up ticks. It’s not like they are rare and remote like moose or grizzly bears.
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“There’s also the increasing propensity for the ignorant to “get in touch with nature”.”
Just heard on the radio this morning that experts are predicting a bumper crop of mosquitos this summer in Atlanta due to the unusually mild winter. No specific mention of global warming. On the other hand, we have a 4 inch rainfall deficit for the year, so perhaps standing water will be reduced.
No matter what the local weather is, it seems someone will always find a reason to worry over it.
Or it could be natural boundary oscillation. Population boundaries are VERY fuzzy things and measuring them is even fuzzier.
Yup, it’s going to be worse than we thought….. again.
The Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (RMSF) (Rickettsia rickettsii), has jumped species from the Deer Tick (Ixodes scapularis) to the brown dog tick (Dermacentor variabilis). While it is primarily on Tribal lands it has the potential to spread worldwide, the habitat of the brown dog tick. So the potential is there for a world wide disease…..so far they are able to contain RMSF i the brown dog tick through tribal efforts with assistance from the states and CDC.
BTW if deer tick borne diseases are spreading a more reasonable explanation would probably be that natural resource and environmental bureaucracies have become dominated by enviros who developed their notions of nature by watching endless repeats of “Bambi” and they have made controlling populations of deer increasingly problematic. Looked at rationally deer are just much larger much prettier versions of rats.
I am one of the many who think\ that climate change has been overhyped, to say the least. My credentials as a skeptic of the IPCC and Michael Mann and climate models are solid — just ask my friends.
But the world is warming, albeit at a slower pace than the models and AGW proponents suggest, more like what the satellite record says.
And if the world is warming, it isn’t absurd to think that creatures that have a range of temperatures in which they can survive might move into areas that are warmer than they once were.
Some claims from the AGW side can be reasonable and accurate, even if much of what they feed us and the media is hype. Let’s distinguish between the two — it makes us more reasonable, and also makes us look more reasonable to those who don’t know the subject well.
One more thing about my previous comment, just for clarification. There are many types of ticks, very likely with different temperature sensitivities. A state could have several types of ticks currently resident, but may or may not yet have a temperature range that would work for a tick from a warmer part of the country.