For at least a decade I have been beating a drum that Global Warming is NOT the cause of Maine’s – and other state’s – increase in the winter tick which is killing off the moose population – a natural occurrence. My proclamation has been that if the state would reduce the moose population to a sensible level, one that actually meets the real “carrying capacity” of the habitat, we would, in turn, see the tick population decrease and result in a healthier bunch of moose.
After all these years, according to the Portland Press Herald, Maine’s lead moose biologist is suggesting a “study” to prove or disprove his thesis that fewer moose would make for fewer ticks and a healthier moose population.
WOW! PROFOUND!
Here are some issues of which I have concerns about. First, the proposal is to conduct the study within half a hunting zone…District 4. Is this a large enough study area to achieve viable data to prove or disprove anything?
Second, can ANY study be legitimate if those conducting the study are still so deeply mired in the nonsense that ticks have increased due to a warming planet? I know the answer to that question…NO!
Third, it is getting to the point that moose study after moose study has resulted in conclusions that we have already known. Collaring of moose in two general regions of Maine has shown mortality rates for the animals. The data seem to indicate that the moose population is continuing to decline and it is believed that declination is due to the winter tick…mainly that tick mortality on moose is destroying the moose calf survivability rate.
Terrific! So, why doesn’t somebody begin conducting some real studies of the winter tick? It is terrible science to continue with more moose studies about ticks when nobody knows, or refuses to understand, about the winter tick. Any real tick studies are old. All new tick “studies” are nothing more than offering lip service about the tick based on cherry picked pieces of data from ancient tick studies that conveniently fit the modern narrative of Global Warming. This kind of work is either criminal or just plain lazy ignorance.
The senseless beating of a dead horse about global warming just isn’t getting the job done because it is promoting a false thesis, unprovable and extremely political. Every study that I have read about the winter tick disproves any theory about its growth due to “Global Warming.” Ticks grow and proliferate in regions of cold much farther north than Maine and much farther south. The winter tick, Dermacentor albipictus, is prolific all over the world, seemingly viable in most any climate…hot, dry, wet, etc. Calling for “old fashioned” winters in Maine will do nothing to mitigate the tick problem. Without real knowledge about the tick, how can an honest study be conducted on the effects of the tick on moose by only examining and tracking the moose?
I would suppose that after six years of moose studies, to finally reach a point where one biologist proposes a theory about the relationship between moose numbers and ticks should be examined, is a good thing. My concerns I have just listed, which are substantial, leaves us, before any study has begun, wondering of what value any data collected would have.
One has to even wonder if these new studies are simply just another way to promote the man-controlled thesis of Global Warming?
