By Jenna Martuscello
I was about five the first time my father took a match to my scalp. My brother and mother held me still as I writhed in fear of the flame, insisting how important it was that I just stayed calm. My father let the match burn for a second before blowing it out and carefully touching it to the small black lump nested in the hair above my temple, he then took a pair of tweezers and pulled away a little bug. My first tick memory coincides with the first year my family moved out to the east end of Long Island from our previous home in Nassau County. In this less populated area I was able to go into the woods around my house and be gone for hours, the neighborhood kids and I would find unkempt nature trails, rotting log bridges, and abandoned hunting blinds; we would walk through bramble and brush the ticks off our pants legs afterwards. Coming home summer evenings meant tick checks and sometimes a match to the scalp, followed by hot shower. Over the years I learned to check myself for ticks as well as the normal preventative measures people could take to avoid tick bites. Regardless of the amount of caution paid, I would still come home from the beach or a trail and find a tick once or twice a season. I would wait a couple days to see if a bulls-eye mark developed around it, keeping my fingers-crossed that I had not taken a bullet in the Russian roulette game of tick-borne Lyme disease.
One day in late August 2014 (after spending too much time in the sun with too little sunblock) a large bulls-eye shaped mark revealed itself on my upper back. Two weeks later my diagnosis was confirmed and I began treatment for Lyme disease and Babesiosis, both specifically transmitted by Ixodes scapularis aka the Deer Tick. It was not surprising to me that I had not found the tick who had nestled itself between my spine and shoulder blade, Deer Tick nymphs carry Lyme and are smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. What did surprise me was my new fear and distance I felt from the natural places I had once felt so comfortable in.
While the east end of Long Island is cherished for its preservation and access to large expanses of nature, it has become an endemic area for Lyme disease due to tick overpopulation. On the East End white tail deer are the primary and preferred host for the deer tick. Due to numerous factors including a lack of predators, the population of white tail deer on the East End has ballooned and begun to cause much debate. Like the ticks, the deer are viewed as invasive pests, threatening the livelihood of farmers, lives of automobile drivers, and the borders of private and wild land. It seems somewhat ridiculous from an outside perspective though, hundreds of people claiming fears of tiny bugs and literally-doe-eyed fawns; but the reality of their experience shows how difficult East Ender’s lives have been due to otherwise innocent animals.
In “Outcry in Eastern Long Island Over a Plan to Cull Deer” New York Time’s reporter N.R Kleinfield attempts to pull apart the issues underlying a battle that Eastern Long Island experienced when initiating deer culling. Deer culling is not an unheard of process, especially in more rural areas. When lack of natural predators allow deer populations to expand so freely, humans can reclaim their predatory role towards them. Culling the deer population would not completely eradicate deer ticks or Lyme disease, but it would decrease their numbers. When I read Kleinfield’s article I see the line drawn between locals and summer people, from those who live and work the land and those who believe their privilege gives them greater understanding for the animals. The people she lists as anti-culling advocates are not actual members of the communities, but vacation home owners, Kleinfield refers to former rock-concert promoter’s summer house as a “country home.” But what those who do not live full time in the area fail to recognize is the amount of issues caused by the deer over-population, their part-time aspect of the deer does not give them the whole story. What Kleinfield does bring out though is the local thought behind actual hunters from the community being able to participate in the cull versus military trained sharp-shooters. In human’s anthropocentric view of animals as pests, a military-like cull seems like a good idea in the same way pesticide spraying does, it is quick fix to a bad problem. “East End Deer Cull: Federal sharpshooters kill 192, falling short of goal in Suffolk County, report says” by Newsday reporter David M. Schwartz looks to show that a good part of the culls failure was due to local disapproval for non-local hunting. If the cull was instead one in which community members were able to engage in the hunting of the deer then they would be the ones in control of their environment. Employing hunters to cull certain amounts of deer per year would create proactive communities, giving local farmers piece of mind for crop protection and people in the community a lesser chance of deer tick contact.
In response the town’s issues with the cull, the East End looked towards implementing other methods of tick control on the deer population. In Tessa Raebeck’s local news article written for the Sag Harbor Express “As Tick Population Increases, the Debate of the 4-Poster Program Continues” brings to light the East end Community’s interest to revive a tick control project conducted by the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County. The 4-Poster Program is one that uses a 4-poster device/ station which has been baited with food, when deer come to feed, rollers with pesticides brush against the deer, treating and killing the ticks on them. In Tony Buck’s YouTube video “Lyme Tick Control,” he explains the process of using a 4-poster device, and while his is homemade, it still works in the same way. Government sanctioned or homemade, the 4-poster device’s efficiency comes from its ability to transfer the chemical Permethrin. Unfortunately locals are misguided in their belief that Permethrin will be the answer to their battle against nature as it is supported by the government and private companies profit interests. Shelter Island’s brochure on the 4-poster program “Ticks are the Problem” they try to show the safety and effectiveness of Permethrin by giving examples of its uses, one of which being the treatment of Permethrin on clothing. In the advertisement video for a local lawn care specialist “Southampton New York Tick Spraying and Tick control” a man totes the safety and benefits of spraying your yard with Permethrin SFR. He looks to appeal to the local populace, closing his ad with “Serving Southampton and all of Long Island for over 26 years,” as if he labors and serves to protect you from the dangers of ticks and tick bites.
As mentioned in Raebeck’s article, the use of 4-poster devices is illegal in all of New York State except for Suffolk County due to the environmental toxicity of Permethrin. What those pushing for 4-poster devices and spraying do not mention is Permethin’s high and often fatal toxicity to fish and beneficial insects like honey bees. The Permethrin SFR’s Product Label warns of the toxicity and hazards that can occur due to the incorrect application of Permethrin or its contact with other animals. While both Shelter Island and the local lawn care specialist touted the safety of Permethrin in clothing, the label suggests that no skin contact is good and that all clothing should be washed immediately if it comes into contact with Permethrin. What is most surprising about the east ends support of Permethrin use is the fact that it is fatally toxic to honey bees and marine life; two necessary aspects to life on the east end. Without honey bees the farmers will not have crops to grow, so it will not matter if the deer come to eat them or not. Our fresh and salt water ecosystems on Long Island are intricately interwoven and are what maintain much of how people live out east. The British Colombia Ministry of Agriculture’s piece on the “Environmental Fate” of pesticides details how different environments impact the ways in which pesticides are distributed throughout the environment. Due to our sandy soil being the good at leaching, run-off from chemicals like Permethrin does not have trouble finding its ways to water systems. And while Permethrin is said to have a low toxicity towards humans, Permethrin leaching can contaminate the underground aquifers, which provide us with our drinking water.
Shaye Weaver’s recent 27east.com article “Four Poster Tick Management Program May Come to East Hampton Town” explains how those in the East Hampton township are just fed up with the prevalence of ticks. The East Hampton Deer and Tick Management Foundation has decided to go forward with the 4-poster tick project though, collecting funds from private and public sources. Weaver quotes Randy Parsons of the Nature Conservancy, saying, “At some point we’d like to get to a place where people don’t feel like prisoners in their own homes.” While I relate very much so to the sentiment attached to feeling kicked out of nature or trapped in my home, I can’t see how the benefits of these proposed answers outweigh their implications and risks. People of Eastern Long Island would greatly benefit from lessened deer and tick populations, but in anthropocentric misguidedness we have begun to overlook that the cost very well could be poisoning our own ecosystem.
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