Arts & Entertainment
The New West: Student learns how little critters have big impacts
Published
5 years agoon
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Outlaw PartnersBy Todd Wilkinson EBS ENVIRONMENTAL COLUMNIST
Cameron Dobrotka is 1,500 miles away from the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem this summer, but he’s at work on something that has implications for our region, and he believes it should be of interest to members of his generation.
Why? Because it’s certain to become more prominent as an issue in the decades ahead.
Dobrotka is studying certain kinds of uncharismatic microfauna that may cause many readers here to squirm. After reading this column, you might even feel as if one of his subjects is crawling across your body. Warning: The description and photo that follows may be unsettling.
Young Mr. Dobrotka’s focus: ticks.
At the Yoder Lab on the campus of Wittenberg College in Springfield, Ohio, Dobrotka is thinking about tick behavior. He’s pondering how the proliferation of these blood-sucking, disease-spreading parasites is occurring in an age of climate change.
The 21-year-old grew up in the Chicago suburb of Elmhurst and he admits that neither he nor his friends paid much heed to the topic of ticks. That changed when Dobrotka, as an undergraduate hoping to pursue a career in medicine, became a research associate in the laboratory operated by college professor and tick researcher Jay Yoder.
Yoder, these days, is focusing his attention on a particular species of tick, Dermacentor albipictus, known by its more common name, “winter tick.”
Winter ticks have emerged as a serious problem for moose in New England and there is growing concern that habitat conditions favoring tick survival in the boreal forest could dramatically affect moose as well as other deer family species, including potentially, elk, deer and woodland caribou.
Ticks are members of the class Arachnida, the same one that includes spiders.
Normally, major tick outbreaks occur in more southern climes and, in the North, only cyclically; normally, they are hard pressed to survive cold northern winters. But warming average temperatures have enabled more to persevere; they become hitchhikers on moose in autumn, start sucking blood, even reproducing on the animals, and stay there till spring. And by then the damage is done.
Although winter ticks cause adult hosts to lose their fur and can make them anemic, giving rise to the name “ghost moose,” they don’t usually kill. They can have a swift lethal effect on moose calves.
According to research professor Pete Pekins at the University of New Hampshire, who has been involved with an ongoing study in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, some winters since 2014 have had 60 percent calf moose loss due to winter ticks. Note: New England does not have wolves.
On some calf moose there were between 70,000 and 100,000 ticks per animal, sometimes many more. A baby moose will get sucked completely dry and die into two weeks.
“We see moose as the icon of gauging the impacts of climate change in the Northeast,” Pekins said. “Are we going to lose all of our moose? The bigger issue is climate change and what’s happening with moose and ticks is an indicator of what’s coming.”
Apart from the physiological impacts of winter ticks, there are deer ticks and other species that carry and spread epizootic diseases, the best-known being Lyme disease and, in our region, Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
The Yoder Lab is novel in that it has enabled dozens of undergraduates to do meaningful research with a climate-change issue that isn’t just emerging; it’s already happening. Professor Yoder says there are four tick species in Ohio that weren’t common when he was a kid.
For Dobrotka, who plays on the lacrosse team when he’s not putting ticks and their saliva under a microscope, climate change represented a serious yet nearly invisible, amorphous phenomena before he got involved in scientific investigation. He now realizes that the spread of exotic parasites and pathogens will be something that members of his generation will have to contend with.
What he appreciates about ticks is that although they are small, their presence can ripple big ecological impacts, even taking down the largest members of the deer family and potentially affecting moose at the population level due to calf mortality.
Dobrotka’s advice to his contemporaries in GenZ: Be prepared, not scared of nature, because danger is relative. Wear long clothes when going into bushy areas; use bug repellents like DEET; check your body—and your dogs— after a hike; if a tick is embedded in you, know how to remove it and save it in a baggie; if you find a tick that is engorged with your blood, or see a bull’s eye rash on the skin, go to a doctor immediately. Lyme and some of the other maladies can be thwarted if treated early with antibiotics.
“Ticks are out there in the world. My view and opinion about ticks has completely changed. They are all over the place and you never know what kind of tick you’ll run into,” Dobrotka said. “I’m not worried about them but they’ve made me think how I need to be aware if I’m out in the woods.”
Todd Wilkinson is the founder of Bozeman-based “Mountain Journal” and is a correspondent for “National Geographic.” He’s also the author of “Grizzlies of Pilgrim Creek” about famous Jackson Hole grizzly bear 399, which is available at mangelsen.com/grizzly.
The Outlaw Partners is a creative marketing, media and events company based in Big Sky, Montana.
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My Barking Dog is a nightmare comedy
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My Barking Dog is a nightmare comedy that tells the story of Toby and Melinda, two lonely people whose lives are forever changed the night they encounter a starving coyote at their apartment building. Over time they grow to expect him, leaving ritual offerings to entice the coyote every night. Toby and Melinda forge a connection over this visitor and share curiosity and concern about his presence in the city. The coyote expands their world–until, one night, their world is shattered. Their lives are pushed suddenly into uncharted territory, sending them on a surreal odyssey that changes their city–and the world–forever.
Directed by LX Miller. Starring Max Schneider and Denise Hergett
Verge Theater is continuing their mission to provide accessible theater to our community. Tickets for My Barking Dog are Pay What You Wish with a suggested price of $35. Audience members are offered the opportunity to select the price point that is comfortable for them when purchasing tickets.
My Barking Dog runs March 15-17, 22-24, 28-30
Performances on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays begin at 7:00 p.m., with Sunday matinees offered at 3:00 p.m.
Suitable for ages 16 . No animals are harmed in the staging of this production.
Tickets are available online at www.vergetheater.com
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Area parents are encouraged to bring their young children to Symphony Storytime with a Bassoon which will be presented at the Bozeman Public Library’s Community Room during
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Area parents are encouraged to bring their young children to Symphony Storytime with a Bassoon which will be presented at the Bozeman Public Library’s Community Room during their regular Toddler and Preschool Storytime on Wednesday, March 20, at 10:15 a.m. The free program, presented by the Bozeman Symphony is especially for children ages 3 to 5. Children will be able to listen to Montana Shakespeare in the Parks actor Emma Rather, who will be joined by Bozeman Symphony Bassoonist Sam Macken. The goal of the program is to encourage a love of music, literacy, and discovery. Additional programs are scheduled at the Library on April 10 and June 12. For more information, visit www.bozemansymphony.org or call 406-585-9774.
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