Foxes, deer help against Lyme disease

This video says about itself:

16 June 2015

Every summer, the number of tick bites goes up, and with it, the number of cases of Lyme disease. What is this disease, and it really that deadly?

Translated from Dutch NOS TV:

Less ticks in areas with foxes and other predators

Today, 08:46

Predators like foxes and stone martens can reduce the numbers of ticks. That says ecologist Tim Hofmeester in daily De Volkskrant. He gained his PhD last week on his research on ticks.

Until now, it was assumed that predators really play an important role in the spread of ticks. Hofmeester has discovered that this is not true. Most ticks are, according to him in areas where there are no foxes, stone martens and pine martens.

The larvae of ticks are often on mice. In areas with predators mice dare to move less often. Thus, they also go less often to places where they might get the larvae.

Lyme disease

Hofmeester further discovered that ticks in areas with lots of deer less frequently transfer Lyme disease. The main cause for this is that the deer are immune to the bacteria that transmit the disease.

Some 25,000 people a year walk in the Netherlands get bitten by ticks. About 10 percent are infected with the bacterium that causes Lyme disease.