The ever-vigilant deer.

That's Meade's video in the morning twilight yesterday. I was walking up ahead of him and moving slowly and quietly. Because I thought they were tolerating me, I stopped. I thought maybe they would approach me, which was dumb, because it wouldn't be good for them or for me. Habituation is bad for them, and as for me, I don't want their ticks (or hooves). But it was my stopping that caused them to panic and spring off. I thought stopping was completely nonthreatening, but I thought about it from their point of view afterwards. I should have continued moving slowly and quietly, keeping in my lane on the path. To stop was to show interest in them, and that crossed the line. Too much! 

"The lone star tick... was first found on Martha’s Vineyard in 1985 but has become more established in recent years, feeding and breeding on the thousands of deer..."

"... that roam the island’s lush woods and beach grass.This is reflected in the rising number of alpha-gal diagnoses. Some 523 new cases were reported on Martha’s Vineyard last year.... [E]xperts fear the situation on Martha’s Vineyard is only going to get worse due to the island’s growing deer population. [Biologist Patrick] Roden-Reynolds said there are anywhere from 55 to 75 deer per square mile — up from 40 to 60 in 2011. This is up to ten times the amount of deer needed for a healthy forest ecosystem, he said, adding: “Each deer this time of year probably has a couple of hundred ticks on them that are attached and feeding and producing new ticks for the next year.” Locals have called for an increase in deer hunting to manage the island’s population. 'Even doing some sort of hunting tourism-promotion thing here would be helpful in a way,' said [Kate Sudarsky, a 26-year-old teacher on the island who was diagnosed with alpha-gal]."

I'm reading "'We can no longer eat burgers or ice cream — all because of a tick bite'/A bug-borne disease has taken over Martha’s Vineyard and is turning people vegan, locals claim" (London Times).

Not enough deer hunters on the island. Hard to imagine the kind of tourism they could set up that would bring in enough deer hunters to do the kind of thinning they'd need. Hire professional sharpshooters. 

Before you riff on the rich-people problems of Martha's Vineyard, take a look at this map showing the range of the lone star tick in the U.S.

6 a.m.

"Reminds me of that 'Chimp Crazy' thing I was watching. People love animals and get inside their fantasy."

Something I texted after receiving the following viral deer video (and agreeing with the guy who began "Nice story, too bad...."):

Nice story, too bad it’s made up of multiple random clips. Also, did dude repair the fence after cutting or just leave it that way for the owner to deal with?

— Jim McCaslin (@JimMcCaslin23) September 2, 2024

And if you're not familiar with "Chimp Crazy," check out the trailer:

People are delusional about wild animals. That reminds me to get back to my rewatching of "Grizzly Man."

"There is no threat to humans from wolves. I live in northern Minnesota wolf country, and wolves avoid people like the plague."

"I've come across them when walking in the woods and they always run away. The two most dangerous animals for me are very large and very small: a bull moose during rut, and deer ticks which spread Lyme's disease. Deer are more dangerous because of car accidents. When Wisconsin reintroduced wolves, car-deer impacts went down. I'm a retired farmer, and farming is a high-risk business. You can't eliminate all risk from it. As for wolf attacks on dogs, the problem is small ankle-biter dogs who don't know when to back off. I had huskies, and they never received any attacks from wolves. But then, huskies speak fluent wolftail and know when to submit."

That's the top-rated comment on "What Can Americans Agree on? Wolves" (NYT). That's a free access link. The article is by Erica Berry, author of  "Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear."

"With the rival's head stuck in its antlers, it’s as if he is wearing a trophy."

Said the photographer Keiko Kanasugi, quoted in "Wild stag spotted with dead rival’s head stuck in its antlers" (The Asahi Shimbun).

A researcher in the ecology of Hokkaido sika deer... said the two animals presumably butted heads during the autumn rutting season. The researcher speculated that they were unable to separate because of their interlocking horns and that the rival eventually died. As decay set in, the body rotted away but the head stayed on, and the survivor of the epic battle carried it through the winter....

There's a lesson here about fighting... 

Who is really free?

"The National Park Service is moving to prohibit hunters on some public lands in Alaska from baiting black bears with doughnuts and using spotlights..."

"... to shoot hibernating bears and cubs in their dens, techniques allowed by the Trump administration but considered inhumane by conservationists. A rule proposed by the National Park Service on Friday would essentially restore restrictions that existed during the Obama administration but were gutted under President Donald J. Trump. Under the new policy, hunters on Alaska wildlife preserves would also no longer be able to kill adult wolves and pups in their dens, or use motorboats to shoot swimming caribou.... Sara Amundson, president of the Humane Society Legislative Fund, issued a statement calling the new rule 'a victory for Alaska’s iconic wildlife species. Baiting bears just to blast them over a pile of doughnuts is just wrong'...."

From "Biden Moves to End Doughnut Lures and Other Bear Hunting Tactics in Alaska/A new rule proposed by the administration would also bar hunters from invading wolf dens to kill pups" (NYT).

"The elk problem is really interesting. I do feel that there has to be population control both on the part of humans and animals."

"Now, the available methods of contraception for animals are not always good.... But humans and animals have to limit our own population growth in order for the world to be minimally just. With the elk, there are things that have been tried: shooting them in cold blood; some kind of population control;  introducing wolves to tear the elks limb from limb. People say that’s better because it’s nature. I don’t like that argument. For the elk, a bullet to the brain — if the person knew how to shoot, which a lot of hunters don’t — would be a lot better than the wolf’s tearing them apart...."

Said Martha Nussbaum, quoted in "Do Humans Owe Animals Equal Rights? Martha Nussbaum Thinks So" (NYT).

There's already enough paranoia about bugging out and hunkering down — must we add prions?!

I'm reading this advice about "go bags" and "stay bins" in The New York Times:

No matter where you live, every home should have a “go bag” and a “stay bin.” The go bag is what you grab when you have to leave the house in a hurry, whether to get to the emergency room or to evacuate because of a fire or a hurricane. The stay bin is a two-week stash of essentials to be used in case you have to hunker down at home without power, water or heat. In the event that you need to stay put instead of flee, keep a stay bin in your home. Use a large plastic bin or a similar container to set aside the essential items for a two-week prion....

Prion?!

A bit of red at sunrise....

... and some deer kept us company... 

 

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"Putin is said to bathe in the blood extracted from deer antlers, which are hacked off while they are growing and still full of fresh blood..."

"The sickening 'antler baths'... are an alternative therapy in the Altai region of Russia, which borders Khazakstan and Mongolia. Believers say the baths improve the cardiovascular system and rejuvenate the skin,"

From "Bloated Vladimir Putin video heightens theories Russian leader is sick" (NY Post).

Here's a long article from 2015 in The Siberian Times: "Would you take a blood bath to boost potency, restore beauty or hold back ageing?" Lots of detail and photographs. I'll just do a few highlights:

"For seven years, Geoffroy Delorme says, he lived in the forest with wild deer, sleeping alongside them beneath the trees, eating acorns, lichens and wild garlic..."

"... and fleeing with them when the hunters came. Now 37, he has written an extraordinary memoir of his experiences: a literary sensation in France, and already translated into 11 languages. It has also caused profound unease and scepticism in certain quarters. Is it true? Or is the author a mere fantasist?... Delorme lives with his friends the deer, finding true peace and freedom there. As a boy he always hated school, was 'somewhat timid by nature' and was finally taught at home.... Lacking the material ambition and hypocrisy to forge a career, by late adolescence Delorme was spending whole days and nights in the nearby forests.... Finally he moved to the forest full-time.... 'Disgusted by my own species,' Delorme embraces a 'childlike mysticism' and his motto becomes: 'To live happily, live hidden!' ... He eventually returns to the 'inhuman human world,' as he calls it, to tell his story and fight for his friends.... 'I want to save them from the destruction of this world which is losing its mind.'"

From "Deer Man by Geoffroy Delorme review — the story of a French Mowgli/This astonishing story has been a literary sensation in France. But is it true?" (London Times).

A deer cannot know how impressed we all are.

And the gold medal for long & high jump goes to.......@ParveenKaswan
Forwarded as received pic.twitter.com/iY8u37KUxB

— WildLense® Eco Foundation 🇮🇳 (@WildLense_India) January 15, 2022

Deer at sunrise.

As seen from the path:

Zoomed in:

I'm surprised that I saw the one deer, not that the second deer was invisible to me until I saw the second photograph. I still can't see the second deer in the first photograph.

In all my sunrise runs on this path, I'd never seen a deer before, and today, suddenly, up ahead, there were 2...

They kept disappearing then reappearing at a later point, and I kept getting my camera out, then putting it away, concluding that they were gone for good, and then, finally, I caught one...

"To counter [global warming] apathy, Starr and others have turned to public art." Faux historical markers "imagine events like a boathouse destroyed in a storm surge from a Category 4 hurricane on Sept. 24, 2032 or a heat-inspired tick outbreak that forced a park to close on June 8, 2044."

From "Artist uses 'historic' markers to raise climate awareness" (ABC News).

News from the future.

Ticks was a nice touch.

I'd use my "insect politics" tag, but ticks are not insects.

Maybe if you thought about ticks more, you wouldn't be so apathetic. But are ticks an important aspect of global warming?

Here's a WaPo interview, from last May, with Matthias Leu, an ecologist and assistant professor at the College of William & Mary:

So far, we have not found an association with weather and tick populations. Many people think cold winters kill ticks. If that is true, why do ticks live in northern states, like Minnesota and Wisconsin? What does influence the tick population is the amount of deer and mice available to serve as hosts for the ticks.... 

"Why, exactly, elk calves die after human activity as mellow as hiking is not entirely clear."

"Some likely perish because the mothers, startled by passing humans and their canine companions, run too far away for the calves to catch up, weakening the young and making them more susceptible to starvation or predation from lions or bears. Other times it may be that stress from passing recreationists results in the mother making less milk."

From "Americans' love of hiking has driven elk to the brink, scientists say" (The Guardian).

Somewhere in Hungary...

Aerial view:

"A Wisconsin legislator who is also a firefighter ripped the state Department of Natural Resources for persuading his department to rescue a deer stranded on a frozen lake...."

"Republican Rep. Adam Jarchow... said he would fire the [DNR] warden tomorrow if he could for 'being complicit in putting firefighters at risk, over a stupid deer.'... 'This is a complete embarrassment and a joke,' tweeted Jarchow.... The DNR posted a glowing statement about the incident on its website Tuesday. The release praised Warden Jesse Ashton for organizing a team of wardens and local firefighters to rescue the deer, saying, 'Those little hooves are no match for slick surfaces!... Teamwork strikes again!'"

From "Lawmaker rips DNR for getting firefighters to rescue 'stupid deer' stranded on frozen lake" (Wisconsin State Journal).

The deer had wandered 500 yards out onto the frozen lake and ought to have been left to its own devices, I suspect, but the DNR may be worried about the deer-loving citizens who caused the department so much angst a few years ago in the heart-rending Giggles the fawn incident.

"Top 5 Wisconsin wildlife risks to humans? Maybe not what you think."

Okay. I'll  play. I only read the headline in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and have not glanced at the answers, though I did see the photo of bees. So I will include bees. The other 4? I'll say: spiders, bats, deer (car crashes), and ticks.

Okay, now I'm looking. Deer was correct. I left out mosquitoes (even though I was thinking about mosquitoes! I feel like cheating and adding mosquitoes to my list). Ticks was correct. Bees was correct. Bats and spiders were wrong. The final category is bears, wolves and cougars, and I must say I considered bears and wolves but decided against it, in part because of the "Maybe not what you think," but also because I can't remember ever reading about a bear or wolf attack in Wisconsin. You think of the big predators when you're out in the wilder places, but when do they ever get anywhere near you? It's those pesky ticks, waiting on the tip of every leaf, that will get you.

The threats to humans from Wisconsin's largest wild predators are, statistically speaking, extremely low.

Yeah, so why are they on the list?

The last recorded injury to a human from a bear was in June 2017 when a man sustained a bite to the thigh in Florence County.

"Most of these bear/human interactions are a result of dog/bear interaction and the human rushes in to save their dog," said USDA's Hirchert. "An actual predatory action towards a human from a bear is extremely rare in Wisconsin."

There has been no wolf or cougar attack on a human in Wisconsin in modern history, according to USDA records.

That said, the big animals rightfully elicit an abundance of caution.

That said! I'll that-said you. You said, "Maybe not what you think." That said, you shouldn't have put bears, wolves, and cougars on the list. Did you check bats and spiders? Hmm?! I'm checking.

Well... 2 brown recluse spiders have been found in Wisconsin in the last quarter century.

As for bats: "The last four cases of human rabies in Wisconsin occurred in 1959, 2000, 2004 and 2010. All four Wisconsin cases acquired the disease from infected bats." The thing about bats is that they can get in your house and you have to deal with it as if the bat carried the horrific disease. You're never lying in bed and suddenly think There's a bear in the house! and spring into action. I mean, I know it has happened....