A panel has been created in Jamestown to address the problem with ticks that live on the island’s large deer population. The female deer tick can lay up to 2,000 eggs in a single egg mass. Nearly half of those will carry Lyme disease. PHOTO COURTESY TICKENCOUNTERS.ORG As recently as 1986 the deer population on Conanicut Island was negligible, as was the incidence of Lyme disease among Jamestown’s human residents. All of that has changed however. In just 25 years, the deer population has increased to about 400, and as a direct result, the incidence of Lyme disease is on the rise.

Dr. Thomas Mather is the director of the Center for Vector-Borne Disease, and a professor of entomology at the University of Rhode Island. In 2010, Mather entered into a contract with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The center awarded $77,000 for the purpose of determining ways to lower the incidents of Lyme disease that is carried by ticks that infest the island’s white-tail deer population.

Mather is now facilitating the Jamestown Lyme Disease Reduction Committee. The committee began meeting in early September and includes seven voting members, mostly people from Jamestown. In addition to the Jamestown residents, there are representatives from the state’s Department of Health and Department of Environmental Management on the committee.

The voting Jamestown members of the committee include Chairman Dr. Joseph England of the Jamestown Family Clinic, Town Council President Mike Schnack and Conservation Commission Chairwoman Carol Trocki. Judy Allen and Hal Krider also serve on the board. The state department representatives are voting members, but Town Administrator Bruce Keiser, who serves on the committee, is a non-voting member.

According to Mather, the objective of the committee is “to discuss deer-targeted strategies for reducing Lyme disease in Jamestown.” That objective is in keeping with the terms of the contract with the center that was entered into when the grant was awarded.

Mather said that the committee has considered what would constitute deer-targeted strategies for disease reduction. Time has been spent discussing deer reduction strategies and their potential impact, and the state of the deer population in Jamestown.

“What would probably surprise many people in Jamestown is that back in 1986 you really didn’t have a resident deer population on the island,” Mather said. “In 1986 when people looked for ticks and disease pathogens like Lyme disease pathogens, they didn’t find deer ticks, nor did they find the pathogens.”

Mather says that it would be interesting to have people think about those days when they could take a walk in the woods, take a hike, or work in their yards without worrying about ticks and disease. “That was less than 30 years ago,” Mather said. “My how things have changed. I would love to see it go back.”

According to Mather, the deer arrived here by swimming. Apparently at one time there was something that kept them off the island, but Mather said whatever that was no longer keeps the deer away. “They are now firmly established on the island and reproduce like crazy. There is not enough hunting pressure to do anything more than cause the population to continue to grow a little bit.”

Hunting is one of the methods being considered for deer population management. Also being considered is the four-poster feeding station. Deer are attracted to the station where they are treated with a pesticide that kills ticks. “It’s a very high maintenance program, but it’s another strategy out there, and we wanted to consider all of the potential strategies that are deer targeted,” Mather said.

The goal of the contract is for the committee to come up with a plan or policy and to present it in an open town meeting where feedback would be taken from interested community members. The feedback would then be imple- mented into a final plan. Meetings are taking place every other week at this point, and Mather reports that the committee is one or two meetings away from being ready for the town meeting.

“I’m sure that there will be differences of opinion,” Mather said. “I think that one thing everyone will have in common though is that it would be nice to go back to the Jamestown of 1986 where we could use our yards and walk in the woods and not really worry about these ticks that carry disease. I’ll bet that there’s not one person who would be against that.”

As an example, Mather suggests that if the deer population could be reduced by instituting a policy that allows a higher harvest rate for deer, that lower level could be maintained by keeping the policy in place on an ongoing basis. As new deer swim to the island, they would be subject to the higher harvest rate. He adds that it is entirely possible that a plan will be formulated that integrates both the hunting and four-poster strategies so that the harvest rate doesn’t have to be increased as much.

“I’m very optimistic that when the time comes for the town to meet about this we’ll be able to find a common mission,” Mather said. “It would be awfully nice not to have to worry about ticks and disease. You can see various sides. Some people might want to protect the deer, but by not encouraging good stewardship of the deer population you are actually causing more harm to them and to the environment than you would be if you were good stewards of the population.”