Each spring , the Department of Health and Department of Environmental Management make their public awareness push , urging Rhode Islanders to repel ( stay away from tick habitats and wear long sleeves and pants , tucked into your socks ); remove ( use tweezers as close to the skin as possible , pull straight up ); and check for ticks ( shower after and do a full-body scan ). This May , officials expressed concern that the very mild winter plus the warm spring put more people on a collision course with more ticks , resulting in a bad year for tick bites and Lyme disease .
What is not being discussed is controlling the deer population . Whitetailed deer , once nearly extinct in Rhode Island , numbered an estimated 19,000 in 2019 . Professional herd culling has been controversial . In 2014 , Block Island ditched plans to hire sharpshooters to thin the deer there , after baiting problems and a state law banning silencers threatened the operation ’ s success . No other municipality has seriously considered it . URI , a participant in a new $ 10 million CDC regional grant to fund a New England Center of Excellence in Vector-Borne Diseases , is exploring the development of a deer-ingestible tick repellent and killer , similar to those for dogs and cats .
In the meantime , Couret , at URI , is wrapping up the first statewide tick survey in eight years , looking for population trends and pathogens , and expects to publish her findings this fall .
And Cliff Vanover in Charlestown has made a few lifestyle changes , to middling effect .
“ I am fine eating turkey and chicken ,” he says . “ I stay out of the woods in the summertime . I take beach hikes instead . This year , I ’ ve had about thirty bites , and I had Lyme disease this spring .” �
Ellen Liberman is an award-winning journalist who has commented on politics and reported on government affairs for more than two decades .
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