Letters to the Editor
Letter: Cutting Deer Population Won’t Help Reduce Ticks — Friends of Animals President
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To the editor:
Kudos to Doug Tallamy, entymologist and author of Bringing Nature Home, for helping to change people’s mindset across the country about the birds and the bees. He is educating people about how insects like moths and caterpillars are indispensable when it comes to biodiversity in ecosystems and that the best thing we can do for wildlife and the environment is plant native flowering plants, trees and shrubs in our own backyard. He brought his empowering and poignant message to the Darien Library Thursday evening and it was thrilling. But Tallamy veered out of his lane of expertise and undermined deer when the topic of ticks and Lyme Disease came up, and that was disappointing. Tallamy seemed unaware of a study conducted at Penn State University showing that deer exclusion in smaller areas is likely to amplify ticks and produce tick-borne disease hotspots where rodents are ubiquitous.