{"id":10987,"date":"2017-08-15T18:24:04","date_gmt":"2017-08-15T23:24:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=10987"},"modified":"2017-08-15T18:24:04","modified_gmt":"2017-08-15T23:24:04","slug":"endangering-human-health-ctd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2017\/08\/15\/endangering-human-health-ctd\/","title":{"rendered":"Endangering Human Health, Ctd"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ecology has way too many variables, but examples are instructive.\u00a0Melissa Breyer on\u00a0Treehugger.com\u00a0<\/b><\/i>covers\u00a0<\/a>more research relevant to my own interest<\/a> in\u00a0Lyme Disease<\/i>, which is already alarming, specifically on how small rodent predators suppress the presence of illness in mice:<\/p>\n

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After two years of painstaking work \u2013 trapping mice, counting ticks, testing the ticks, and dragging a blanket on the ground to capture additional ticks \u2013 [Tim R.] Hofmeester had some rather conclusive-seeming data. \u201cIn the plots where predator activity was higher, he found only 10 to 20 percent as many newly hatched ticks on the mice. Thus, there would be fewer ticks to pass along pathogens to next generation of mice,\u201d writes [Amy Harmon in\u00a0The New York Times<\/b><\/i><\/a>].<\/p>\n

Curiously, areas of higher predator activity didn’t correlate to a decrease in the numbers of mice themselves, just a lower rates of infected ticks. Hofmeester suggests that the predators’ activity curtailed the roaming of the small mammals, which was enough to make an impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first paper to empirically show that predators are good for your health with respect to tick-borne pathogens,\u201d Dr. Taal Levi, an ecologist at Oregon State University, told The Times. \u201cWe\u2019ve had the theory but this kind of field work is really hard and takes years.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Another reason to keep the cats. Although I wish they were a little more active. Insouciant bunnies, now we have insouciant mice. Might as well put lounge chairs out for them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ecology has way too many variables, but examples are instructive.\u00a0Melissa Breyer on\u00a0Treehugger.com\u00a0covers\u00a0more research relevant to my own interest in\u00a0Lyme Disease, which is already alarming, specifically on how small rodent predators suppress the presence of illness in mice: After two years of painstaking work \u2013 trapping mice, counting ticks, testing the \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10987"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10988,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10987\/revisions\/10988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}