A mystery solved

Can’t remember the date at all, but sometime back I did a column titled, “Lies About Lions.” Was concerned and unbelieving that a group of people in New York state were seriously promoting a plan advanced by an alleged expert to handle a serious over population of whitetail deer on Fire Island south of New York City. 

The deer were sometimes aggressive towards people, were eating resident’s shrubs, flowers, and vegetable gardens but worse, they were believed to be a host carrier of Lyme disease.

The expert’s plan was to wipe out the deer population by introducing a substantial population of mountain lions that lived on deer but “were absolutely harmless to humans.” In my column I gave details regarding the history of mountain lion attacks on humans in Montana and throughout the western states where they still survived. May have included some salty remarks?

Since doing that column I have wondered what ever happened back there on that popular east coast island, then this May came a letter from a man in Florida with answers to the whole situation. It is only fair to share that correspondence:

May 15, 2016

G. George Ostrom

The Trailwatcher

A friend just sent me a copy of your column titled “Lies About Lions.” Knowing I was from Long Island and our summers were spent playing on Fire Island. He knew I would see its humor. He was correct.

You see, Mr. “John Doe” was a law professor without common sense. This I attribute to his long exposure to academia. Today common sense is no longer common. However, there are still some humans who possess this rare trait. One person figured out you kill the tick, not the deer. This was done with chemically treated cotton balls that would kill the ticks. They were inserted into cardboard tubes and placed on the island. The theory was that they would be found by the white-footed mouse (the first host of the tick) and brought home to make a more comfortable nest. Sounds like a common sense going on here. Did it work? I don’t know, we left Long Island in 1993. However, my daughter took with her Lyme disease, something she will have forever.

Plum Island lies off the northeast coast of Long Island and 17.3 miles from Old Lyme, Connecticut. This small island houses the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal Disease Center specific to research on birds and ticks, but not limited to. In 1975, a mystery illness broke out in the town of Old Lyme and was coined Lyme disease. The U.S. Government denies it came from the Plum Island facility. But those with common sense know better. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, well you know, but some from academia might disagree. As for “John Doe” law professor. He passed away. Perhaps he will find some common sense in his Valhalla.

Respectfully, Bill Keller, realist. Not from academia.

G. George Ostrom is a national award-winning columnist for Hungry Horse News. He lives in Kalispell.