Lyme disease, hunting and few other facts

Hunting Will Not Eliminate Lyme Disease.

All mammals (except bats), 49 bird species and pets can serve as hosts for Lyme disease infected ticks. The tick's preferred host is the white footed mouse, not deer. The American Lyme Disease Foundation has stated that it does not recommend killing deer as a way to control Lyme Disease. Killing deer may increase the amount of food and cover available for mice, birds and other hosts, which in turn will boost their numbers and escalate the spread of the disease. If hunting is an effective means of controlling Lyme disease, then Pennsylvania -one of our nation's most heavily hunted states -would not be among the four states with the highest incidence of Lyme. Hunting will not eliminate Lyme disease.

INEFFECTIVENESS AND DANGERS OF HUNTING

Hunting Increases Deer - Car Collisions
According to the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration, most car/deer collisions happen during hunting season. Pennsylvania's second largest insurance company (the nation's 12th largest insurer) - Erie Insurance - collected data in 1997 which showed:

• 50 % of all deer-car collision claims occurs during
  October, November and December -primarily due to hunting. Hunters will claim that this is mating season but it's not. Deer mate in October - a time when the deer-car collision rate was 1600. The vast majority of deer-car collision claims - i.e. 4524 claims - occurred in November to December during hunting season not mating season.
• The counties with the highest number of deer-car collisions were among the most heavily hunted counties based on statistics from Erie Insurance and the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
• Pennsylvania Deer-car collisions averaged 34 deer claims per day for the year. But on the first day of buck season the average was 157 and on the first day of doe season it was 160 - a five-fold increase!
• Hunting of deer predators Habitat modification including clear-cutting to enhance "edge" habitat and planting vegetation for deer.

Deer too have interest in living and do not want to die



WHAT THE PUBLIC CAN DO RIGHT NOW TO HELP PROMOTE THE NON LETHAL DEER OPTIONS GO HERE