Taking aim at Lyme disease

Couple seeks to raise public awareness of the deer ticks behind the disease

Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Charlie Shoemaker⁄The Gazette After Ginny Little (left) was diagnosed with Lyme disease in the fall, she and her husband Knowles Little began to raise awareness of the bacterial infection caused by ticks carried by deer and other mammals. They helped organized a deer hunt in their neighborhood.

The destruction of the flower and vegetable gardens, the loss of shrubs and trees, they could live with.

But when Ginny Little, 60, fell ill with Lyme disease last fall, they decided the deer posed a greater risk to people’s health than landscaping.

Lyme disease is a bacterial infection caused by a tick bite. Symptoms can resemble the flu, severe arthritis and even Alzheimer’s, according to the Montgomery County Department of Park & Planning Web site.

Now the couple is working to raise public awareness of the disease and is taking aim at reducing deer herds by organizing a deer hunt.

‘‘When I had to take Ginny to the hospital, I said this [deer population] is serious,” said Knowles Little, 64, who at times spots two dozen or so deer passing through his yard. ‘‘People like to look at the deer and feed the deer, but in fact, we have an environmental disaster on our hands.”

Ginny Knowles believes she was bitten while in a shady section of her backyard during humid weather last fall.

‘‘Those are the ideal conditions for ticks, wet, shady and humid,” she said.

Her severe fatigue, joint aches and a rash that was soothed only by spending hours in the bathtub were treated with antibiotics for 15 weeks, but she ended up in the hospital for three days. A family dog, a 120-pound Great Dane called Maggie, was also diagnosed around the same time when Lyme disease literally brought her to her knees.

That was when the couple declared war on Lyme disease and began a public awareness campaign.

‘‘I’ve lived in my house for over 50 years, since I was 10 years old,” Knowles Little said. ‘‘Beginning in the early 1980s, the deer population has exploded. People feed them and see them as ornaments. I see them as an invasive species without any natural predators, like bears or wild cats, to keep their numbers down. We created the problem, now we have to fix it.”

In November, the couple organized an information meeting for the 83 homeowners in their neighborhood that borders the Watts Branch watershed.

Following the meeting, some 45 homeowners in Potomac Highlands and adjacent Glen Hills neighborhood signed on to allow hunters to come onto their properties.

By the time deer-hunting season ended on Jan. 31, some 22 volunteer bow hunters reduced neighborhood herds by 75 deer.

The hunters belong to Animal Connection Deer Management Team, a volunteer group of trained and licensed bow hunters from across Maryland and Virginia. They set up tree stands 15-feet above the ground and since they shoot directly down, if a shot misses it sticks into the ground.

‘‘All the deer meat went to various causes, soup kitchens and the needy,” said Peter Marino, of Gaithersburg, who founded the organization.

The hunt missed the target with some residents, Knowles Little said.

‘‘This is a lightning rod issue...and some people said not only ‘no, but hell no and don’t ask me again’,” he said. ‘‘I’m not into hunting, I’m a suburbanite. But thinning the herds so they don’t have to forage in yards for food makes for healthier herds. And the less deer, the less ticks.”

But some deer experts, like Rob Gibb, a park and planning natural resource manager, believe there is little connection between the number of deer and the number of ticks.

‘‘Studies show there is not a clear-cut, proportional relationship,” he said, adding that when deer populations are reduced ticks simply find a home on smaller animals, such as white-footed mice or chipmunks.

During a two-year life cycle, deer ticks initially feed on small mammals like mice and woodchucks but as adults, graduate to large animals, like deer.

Gibb estimates the deer population in certain Potomac neighborhoods to be around 100 to 200 deer per square mile, so taking out 75 may be just a drop in the bucket.

But aside from the tick issue, he said there are plenty of good reasons to reduce deer herds. They destroy native vegetation as well as home landscaping and cause numerous car accidents. And over the years, deer have become increasingly tame so exposure to hunters may instill a sense of fear.

‘‘Keeping wild animals wild is a good thing,” he said.

If residents want to feed deer, Knowles Little encourages the use of deer feeding stations known as ‘‘4-posters.” Rollers deliver a tick insecticide to the side of a deer’s head as the animal feeds on corn.

Picking up leaves and debris in yards also removes the nesting grounds of ticks and small mammals like mice.

‘‘There are other options, like putting up an 8-foot tall fence to keep deer out, but those fences are ugly,” he said. ‘‘I’d rather handle the problem by making the deer herds healthy.”