To the Editor:
Fear can do terrible things. It can build into hate, and translate into killing. Many now spray their green spaces in the hopes of suppressing ticks — and while doing so, other insects the wild world needs get smothered too. A chain of food is broken, so much is lost — what will birds eat? Where have the lightning bugs gone?
As I read the paper and see full-page ads to obliterate deer on this Island, or see the letters to the editor filled with vitriol, eradication, culling, killing, I feel we here are in our own ICE stronghold, where the targets are tawny-colored, four-legged deer. (Ticks will be here with or without deer; there are many other vectors.)
I’ve lived here most of my life, and always have dogs and cats. A routine borne of decades of dealing with ticks has been to prepare for walks: spraying tick repellant, checking all over when the outing is done, checking at night. I don’t pretend to know what the answer is, if there is one.
I just know killing is never the answer. We humans have sanitized so much of the world — to make it “better” for us — seemingly disregarding what is best for the ecosystem that holds us all.
Don’t live in fear of ticks and deer. Get a responsible deticking routine in place. Enjoy the natural world; it can help our humanness be more humane.
Susan Jones
Vineyard Haven and Chilmark
On the Elizabeth Islands next door to the Vineyard we have no pavement or vehicles so we are always exposed to ticks when we step out the door. Coyotes arrived in the late 80s and reduced our overpopulated deer herd by 90% but we never really saw a drop in tick densities. We now have about 10 to 15 deer per square mile, far lower than the Vineyard, but plenty of ticks and illnesses. We have devised a permethrin treated oversock we call Ticktogs to live with ticks and not get bitten. We found a very sheer but strong and breathable parachute fabric that was so tightly woven that even tiny ticks were blocked, and we sewed them into oversocks with a turned-down top to stop climbing ticks at the knee. We sewed them up in Fall River and treated them with permethrin to last seventy washings at Insect Shield. So they provide an unbroken physical barrier backed up by a repellant over the part of the body where ticks almost always hop on. We hope they can help our Vineryard neighbors as they have helped us.