Lyme Disease and your Farm’s Ecosystem
Photo by Dave Conlin.
Lyme disease has become an epidemic in the United States. The bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi, that causes it, and the vectors that carry it continue to create an unbroken cycle of this disease. In fact the bacterium that causes it is present worldwide, and it is a highly evolved bacterium.
Epidemics are not like the flu that comes once a year and then is gone. Instead they are a manifestation of a serious lack of balance in the ecosystem on Earth. Here in the United States, the dramatic changes in the landscape due to the clear cutting of 97% of the forests of the continent, along with the killing of immense numbers of our important carnivores were the beginnings. And as a result of these initial behaviors, the populations of the white footed mouse, the carrier of the bacterium, reproduced in great numbers as did the deer, whose large bodies the adult ticks breed and feed upon.
Scientists in this country are struggling to understand this bacterium that is causing this epidemic, an epidemic that is growing exponentially every year. BUT if we do not see ourselves as members of a larger community of life, and recognize what we really need to do to end the epidemic, it will continue.
BRING BACK BALANCE TO ECOSYSTEMS.
SO YOUR FARM ~ Recognize your farm as an ecosystem that needs all its members. Protect yourself from this epidemic by welcoming carnivores like Coyotes especially, to create the balance…by hunting the rodents and keeping the deer on the move and their numbers in balance.
THE EARTH HAS ALL THE ANSWERS….WE NEED TO LISTEN.
