Originally Posted by
mrbb
again, I can see your views, here,
but something I have to say is, here in the USA, due to we have wildlife in so many places, and the fact of human expansion into where wildlife lives, wildlife has NO choice but to be about humans on a regular basis.
some people learn to live better with wildlife than other.
Some choose to complain and try and alter the wildlife to THEM< and that seldom works well for anyone, from the critter to the humans, Which is something I never understood about people, that move from the city, into the woods, then complain about wildlife being there, eating there shrubs and or plantings in there yards, that were once woods/ and forests where the same animals lived before they , tried to make the place into a yard and a house on top of it!
I have known and helped and worked with a LOT of game dept folks,(typically called Wardens here) when I was younger I slightly went down the road of trying to become one, but, things went another way.
I have been very active and passionate about learning about wildlife and habitat management all my life, and have a pretty good understanding of it all on many level's.
Also have a lot of training in many other like area's, also due to a passion to learn more about things in it!
as d=for tick's and deer,
when I first started hunting deer here, I could hang them with skin on and NEVER ever find a tick on or near a deer, but since about the late 90's, that all changed, and ticks would be found her and there, into the 2010's, there now.
Its very common to find a few dozen or more on them and or around them if hung for any amount of time!
Sort of the same deal with dogs and cats(as in pets) we never found a single one on our pets, till about the mid 90's, now if you don't treat your pet with a topical flea/tick solution, they will get countless ticks on them !
Some folks don't like to talk about , global warming, or weather changes, but IMO< there is something going on, warmer weather, wetter weather, sure seems to have made for a lot more ticks in my area!
Not to mention, just all the crazy weather anymore, I don't think I have gone 48 hours without rain in over a yr now, and its terrible to have so much wet all the time!
I Doubt it can be good for any critter that isn't a fish or like species LOL
Parasites, bacteria, mold, are/is in more places now than ever due to all the rains here!
I fully agree with you, but there is little wildlife I encourage to be where I live. It will never be perfect. It is kind of neat to watch wildlife from your kitchen window but IMO not smart. All you can really do is limit exposure and watch yourself and your pets closely.
I used to have a bunch of Hedgehogs hanging around the garden. Over the years the numbers expanded exponentially. I'd looked closely at a few Hedgehogs, under those bristles (spins) was a thriving colony of Fleas and Ticks. After our second Flea infestation, being woken up with Fleas in my bed and pulling many more Ticks than normal off the dogs I decided to relocate those Hedgehogs. It was actually pretty easy, Hedgehogs like nuts especially in Fall just before hibernation and I have a nut tree. After a hundred trips outside over a period of weeks with a high powered flashlight, I managed to relocate 19 of those suckers from an area of maybe a hundred square yards. I'd keep them in a plastic barrel and then make a trip to the woods when I had 3-5 of them, The inside of that plastic barrel had hundreds of fleas in it after the hedgehogs had been in there 2-3 days. Now I take normal precautions with my dogs and Fleas are rare. I moved the problem to the woods where it belonged. Side note, I'd researched Hedgehogs and most of the top hits on Google where from Hedgehog lovers who swore the parasites on hedgehogs weren't the same Fleas and Ticks that got on people and Dogs, they lied.
Around here you'd have to be blind or oblivious not to notice the climate change. Flowers blooming months earlier than they used to, fruit trees flowering 6 weeks early more years than not. Bird species etc, that used to be prolific are disappearing. I haven't seen a Blackbird in months, used to be at least two pair outside the kitchen window looking for worms in the garden. Now we have a variety of wild Bees in the garden, I haven't seen a HoneyBee in months. The changes aren't subtle here. The question is will anything we actually do make any noticeable difference. I've done some of the rough math, my conclusion is if we make a twenty percent change today, we may (or may not) change the temperature a few percentage points in twenty years. IMO we'd likely be better off in the long term learning to adapt than trying to influence the weather. One thing we can do is to stop cutting down the forest and replacing them with asphalt and concrete.