doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com UK pheasants, ticks, and disease

very interesting reading, i am a native of north louisiana - where ticks were a constant and almost universal problem. when i was a teenager (i'm closing in on 76 now) my uncle, who owed a small rural telephone company, introduced me to park-davis "neko" surgical soap. he was frequently afield hunting "trouble"...along roadsides, railroad row's and powerlines. constant high humidity (45-55" annual rainfalls) and brief seasons of cold weather made for ideal tick environment - it was not uncommon to walk through dense undergrowth for 15 - 20 minutes, and collect 15 - 20 ticks. absolutely worst was the misfortune of blundering into a fresh hatch, and later that day discovering your legs from knees down were decorated with literally hundreds of tiny "seed ticks" - almost too small to see and impossible to deal with - the standard treatment was a soaking bath, with vinegar mixed in and a vigorous scrubbing...followed by days of unyielding itching.

my family moved into far northeastern texas when i started school, and weather/ecology/ticks were more or less identical. i loved the woodlands (still do) and was outside most of the time it was an option. when i was 12 - 13, uncle louie gave me a bar of "neko" and said if you use this the ticks will not settle in on you. worked like a charm, you might have the typical 12 - 15 ticks aboard, but they were still roaming around in your clothes trying to find a suitable place to set up shop. but, there's never a free lunch - "neko" contained 1% mercuric iodide, and was removed from public sales about 1970. it's replacement lacked the mercury, and was no better than ivory soap as far as ticks were concerned.

by the mid 70's, the invasive species "fire ants" were showing up farther and farther north in texas - and proving it's an ill wind that blows no good - in a few short years ticks were subdued (so were quails and horny toads, on about the same timeline). as they spread into louisiana, oklahoma, arkansas the tick problem was largely solved. by the late 70's there had only been 3 deaths in texas by lyme disease, and now lyme's is a much greater threat up north - where there are no fire ants. as it says in the good book - the lord giveth and the lord taketh away.

one thing your first link missed is the cattle egret - or as commonly known, the tick bird. throughout the deep south, they are a common sight mixed in among herds of cattle. they are african in origin - and you seldom see a herd of cape buffalo without the attending flock of tick birds. i lived about 40 miles east of ambassador college (gardner ted armstrong's school associated with the radio church of god), and it was well known that he had imported a start of the birds in the early 70's. at that time they were a picturesque novelty, but are now a common sight in any deep south cattle spread.

best regards,
tom

I'm curious. From where did your neighbor imported those birds?

The common history that I know is that they go here on their own as one of the more remarkable emigrations. It is fairly well documented and a good summary of that is here.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4511880?origin=crossref

Fire ants are, indeed, the scourge of the south and many ecological calamities have been attributed to them. Nasty critters.

This is an interesting popular article.

https://www.lymedisease.org/which-birds-spread-lyme-disease/

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Everything, the publisher, their policies and rules for submission, to the tracking of 'popularity' are leftiepolitically motivated, right prof? Would your grad students be allowed to reference these articles, for requirements of their degrees?

And where do you get this bs from, craig? The bottom of another bottle?

No of course they would not reference to these articles because they are not primary literature. That's pretty simple.

You are amazingly dense.

I get my thoughts specifically from the active links in the article. The businesses that make your article possible have guidelines, and even recommended key words to assist 'publication', as well as have their own individual mission statements and political affiliations. And to beat the old dead horse, the 'popularity' of the article is tracked by two, specific businesses.

Your bias is simply on display, and you cannot be dismissed as dense. It is by your hand, that your are a lightning rod for peddling junk science.

You are bizarre. How does the article offend your political agenda? Or promote the liberal agenda? Does Trump deny that birds spread disease-laden ticks, or does he deny that Lymes even exists?

You are easily the most irrational perspn on this board.

An iceberg in the Arctic is crying with all the Co2 being emitted from people arguing about who knows more about ticks.


_______________________________________
Melting icebergs at 3,300 gallons per hour.

https://youtube.com/shorts/yBSqImYZcPA?si=OxeOiflr_wySKNxY

Deet is for your skin. It works for various biting pests at that level. Permethrin is for your gear and clothing. It will repel the wee beasties and keep themfrom reaching your skin.