There is no end to this and I suspect it will continue – the constant ignorant echo-chambering of global warming is going to kill all of us and everything that lives. Damn global warming and damn the computers people have become addicted to that creates fake “computer modeling” and then is plastered throughout cyberspace as an effective means of brainwashing the masses into believing that if man was simply killed off, Nirvana would take over.

A recent article in the Bangor Daily News (Maine) contained information about a Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont ongoing moose study. Any discussion of this study inevitably brings up the subject of moose ticks. It’s kind of a no-brainer that vast amounts of winter ticks, also called moose ticks (Dermacentor albipictus) are killing moose – perhaps too many moose.

The article states information they claim is what limits the growth of winter ticks: “Late summer drought, which kills tick eggs, and early snowfall, which kills larval ticks before they attach to a host like a moose.” Unfortunately, as always, this is misleading information but works well with selling news copies. Also, unfortunately, this nonsense is repeated incessantly throughout all media to a point where people, including wildlife biologists, believe only what they read in the Media.

If you believe the studies and quote information from those studies, then doesn’t it make sense that you should believe everything that’s in the studies?

Late summer drought CAN have an effect on tick larvae survival. It may also have an effect on tick egg survival. Regardless, that effect is quite minimal in the grand scheme of things…that is if you want to believe the studies where these quotes come from. In addition, “early snowfall” might kill tick larvae in a roundabout way, but most likely the event itself will not kill ticks in an all-of-a-sudden happening. That doesn’t stop the ignorance and dishonesty.

One such study tells about drought and snow and cold and its effects on the survival of the winter tick larvae. It has all the regurgitated echo-chamber scientism, graphs, bells, whistles and even information on the use of “computer modeling” in arriving at certain conclusions. I guess left out of these media echo-chamber discussions are important statements like: “While alterations in drought may influence distribution of the winter tick, climate conditions, especially temperature and snowfall in the spring and fall seasons, seem to be the major determinants of northern expansion of D. albipictus.”

Take notice that drought “MAY” influence tick distribution. However, what does this study say about temperatures? It says that the most influential factors in the destruction of winter tick larvae are high and low temperature exposures. For example, direct exposure of 6 hours to low temperatures of -13 F cause tick larvae to begin dying off. And, high temperatures over 114 F will do the same. Media doesn’t bother to read any of these studies and so they rely on what somebody else tells them who also never reads and examines the studies in their entirety.

What do these temperatures mean? When tick larvae are on the ground, prior to climbing vegetation as part of their “questing” event, they are commonly found in the leaves where temperatures effectively never reach 114 degrees F or -13 F, say nothing about doing so for 6 hours or more.

Once the tick larvae leave the protection of the leaf litter, they begin climbing vegetation where they search for a host, i.e the moose. Their “quest” is a host for the winter where they remain mostly protected from climate conditions hiding out in about a 100-degree climate until Spring.

In late Summer and early Fall, during the tick’s quest, they are exposed to the elements while waiting in the vegetation. It is during this time that the tick is vulnerable. What we are never told is that the tick at this stage is most vulnerable to wind. Yes, that’s right, wind. Wind can blow the ticks from the vegetation and return them to the ground. They must then begin their slow ascent back up the vegetation. They might miss their ride. It could kill them in the end.

They are also vulnerable to cold temperatures. In Maine, during September and October, if the tick larvae are exposed to temperatures at or below -13-degrees F for six hours or more, according to this one study, they will begin to die off. If early snow comes and remains on the ground, it will end the quest cycle which in turn will limit the number of ticks waiting to attach themselves to a passing moose. Obviously, a shortened or a lengthened quest cycle will alter the number of animals that take up a tick for the winter.

So, please leave your comments below with data that shows when and how often areas of Maine have seen these climatic conditions that will kill tick larvae in September and October. Hint: I won’t be holding my breath while waiting.

But it’s global warming that is causing the increase in winter ticks. That’s we hear perpetually. Okay, let’s play their game. If global warming, as spoken and written about in the Media, is real, then according to them the average temperature in a place like Maine will increase gradually anywhere from 1 – 5 degrees F over the next half-century. With the information I just gave, and the fact that more than likely the authors of this study are believers in global warming (they indicate as such in their study report) how can it pass the straight face test that small average temperature rises are what is causing ticks to increase in the proportions that they have?

Missing from this study, as we often find in about all studies rooted in global warming mythology, is any discussion about how the number of moose effect the number of ticks. We know from what has been learned that the winter tick could never survive if it didn’t have a host. This study indicates that riding on the back of a moose is the safest place in the world for tick larvae to be. When we examine the life cycle of the winter tick, you don’t have to be an over-paid scientist to understand that to kill the tick is to eliminate any one part of its life cycle. Not much we can do about climatic conditions…no, seriously, there isn’t. Get over it. Grow up! There is so much separation in reality between the conditions of drought, high and low temperatures (in Maine) and the survival of the tick larvae that it appears a waste of time trying to blame it all on global warming when perhaps the answer is really very simple.

I am thus reminded of what a veterinary scientist said not very long ago about moose and moose ticks: “Once (winter ticks are) introduced in a moose population in an area, the only known way to control it is to reduce the moose density, especially calves, so that there are no hosts available,” she said. “It would require an antler-less hunt or even a cull of calves and yearlings, which would not be something that would be easy to sell to the public.”

I have, and will continue to hear, all the nonsense about how, because I am a hunter, I just want to hunt and kill moose. Not exactly true. For example, I am a hunter. I hunt almost 100% only deer. I have never hunted moose, nor have I ever applied for a moose permit to do so. I have no plans for my future to do that either. I like moose meat. I like it a lot. I like deer venison more.

Consider, however, the ignorance of the statement that all I want to do is hunt moose or that all I want is for hunters to hunt moose. Once the moose herd was reduced to levels where events of winter ticks stop their epizoodic levels, hunting of moose will return to a level to maintain a moose herd. There might be a short burst of increased moose hunting to reduce the population, but certainly, it will not continue.

As far as the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife managing moose numbers at levels to please the public to be able to see moose, it is time to end that dangerous practice. Growing moose so people can drive around in climate-controlled autos and view moose, needs to end and end now. Look what it is doing to our moose. Are we to allow 50% of our moose calves to suffer a slow death so someone in an SUV can gawk at a moose? Get off your lazy ass and walk in the woods to see moose the way some of the rest of us do.

But nothing will change. Obsessed with global warming and the money and convenient excuses that come with it, enables the creation of more and more useful idiots.

However I must say,

DON’T GO LOOK!