By Chris Taylor
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkms/local-wkms-895361.mp3
Dover, TN – A National Wildlife Federation report finds climate change will impact two notoriously unpopular species found in the Four Rivers Region. Both poison ivy and deer ticks can leave you itching for relief, but for some the reaction can be much more serious. Chris Taylor speaks to one man about his experience contracting Lyme Disease and gets some scientific perspective for what's on the horizon.
Jimmy Keel lives in rural Stewart County, Tennessee. He's an avid outdoorsman and gets out of the house any chance he gets, but sometimes when he comes back indoors, he brings along some unwelcome company.
Keel-My area's eat up with ticks I mean. You got dogs there, you got horses there, then you got deer all over the place. They're bad, they're real bad.
A couple years ago, Keel had an especially unlucky passenger tag along on him.
Keel- I had a rash pop up on my leg. Five minutes later it'd be gone, it would pop up somewhere else. I thought I was allergic to something and I went to an allergy specialist and he couldn't find nothing I was allergic to.
As these symptoms continued, Keel went to several area doctors who offered no diagnosis. This went on for almost six months.
Keel-I couldn't get it cured and then I got to run a mild fever and the fever got to getting worse and worse and worse. That's when it really got bad. I mean I got a real high fever one night and I called the ambulance and went to the emergency room.
Keel says his flu-like fever and rash symptoms finally tipped doctors off that he had Lyme Disease. A blood test confirmed it and simple antibiotics cleared up the symptoms. He feels lucky his doctors were able to identify the disease when they did. Before long, it would have attacked his joints, heart, and central nervous system. A year later, the symptoms came back.
Keel- I don't know if I got bit by another tick and got infected again. It can be dormant you know and come back later too. They gave me the antibiotics again and it cleared it up that time and it hasn't been back.
National Wildlife Federation Senior Scientist Dr. Doug Inkley says cases like Keel's will likely increase in our area over this century. He says climate change is making for more mild winters and warmer conditions which are ideal for the parasite.
Inkley- The deer tick, which carries Lyme Disease, is expected to expand its range sometime by the end of this century or even within the lifespan of a child born today.
Murray State University Parasitologist Dr. Leon Duobinis-Gray says Kentucky is already on the fringe of these Lyme Disease-carrying populations.
Gray- It's really called Ixodes scapularis, but we don't have very many at all. But I'll tell you what, it's funny: you go across the Tennessee border, and you can find them all over the place.
He says tick population levels are already on the rise.
Gray- The basic reason is because ticks like warm, moist environments. That's what they're after and they like higher vegetation.
Dr. Duobinis-Gray also points out that where ticks live can vary dramatically within their already established range.
Gray- We do have a distributional problem with them. I could be in a mowed yard no ticks and go to the bushes out there. EEP! Ticks!
Dr. Doug Inkley says the tick migration isn't the only side effect of climate change expected to hit our area this coming century. In fact, it's expected to be a big hit with ticks too, creating even more undergrowth for the parasites to dwell.
Inkley-Poison ivy, in the future, is going to grow much more rapidly than it is now; perhaps twice as rapidly.
Because of excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, many plant species will likely grow faster. Inkley says the gas acts sort of like a fertilizer.
Inkley- But there's something else even more insidious: that when grown in higher levels of carbon dioxide, the poison ivy produces more of the toxin that causes the rash in human beings.
The study Inkley cites doesn't find how increased toxicity will translate when it afflicts the skin. Though, he says if these growth projections are accurate, many more people will likely come into contact with the infamous plant.
Inkley- If you have a two or three year old child, you can expect that before their life is over, they're going to be looking at these impacts if we don't address climate change.
Nowadays, Jimmy Keel is much more vigilant about checking himself for ticks. He sprays his yard each spring to keep the parasites beyond the edge of woods which, by the way, are blanketed with poison ivy.