A tick in the usa thats bite can basically turn you vegan...

[WAB]

Alaska used to be a place to get away from snakes, scorpions, poisonous spiders, tics and foaming at the mouth anti-hunter types.

We are now hearing of the occasional black widow spider, brown recluse spider, tic and flea being found here.

Anchorage is fast becoming saturated with rabid anti-hunters now as well.

Hopefully the snakes and scorpions will wait awhile longer to invade this formerly great sanctuary.

Perhaps you can put the snakes, scorpions, ticks and spiders in the same place you keep your anti-hunters???

On a serious note, I lived a number of years in Fairbanks and Kenai. To me, Anchorage didn’t feel much different from a city in the lower 48. Prettier landscape, but crime and politics looked a lot different than the rest of Alaska.

 

[Velo Dog]

Perhaps you can put the snakes, scorpions, ticks and spiders in the same place you keep your anti-hunters???

On a serious note, I lived a number of years in Fairbanks and Kenai. To me, Anchorage didn’t feel much different from a city in the lower 48. Prettier landscape, but crime and politics looked a lot different than the rest of Alaska.

Perhaps we can do that.

Anchorage crime & politics ya, crime was high here 41 years ago when I first moved to Anchorage.
It is still high today.
The politics was back then however, at least sporadically conservative.

Now, all City Counsel seats are always inhabited by radical socialists.
I guess it’s what the new generation wants.
Little do they know the brutal taxation horrors that await them.

At least we don’t have (yet) the tics carrying Alpha-gal disease.

 

[Rimbaud]

I was turkey hunting in the southeast. We covered a lot of ground in wooded areas. Fast forward to Mother’s Day. I made steak for my wife and kids. A few hours later, my stomach began to feel queazy. We went to bed, and I woke up feeling itchy. I went downstairs to read, and the allergic reaction worsened. I tried to make my way back to bed to sleep it off, but passed out, and instead got to go to the ER where I was treated for alpha-gal and got stitched up because I banged my face on the edge of our bed when I went down. I’m told that the allergy does not seem to extend to venison, but I promise you I have no desire to eat red meat or lamb. I have to carry epi pens w me and have industrial strength steroids just in case. Encourage everyone to be ultra careful in the woods. I had no idea that I had even been bit by a tick, and didn’t even find one one me. Apparently, the ticks bite deer and then humans and that is how the allergy is transmitted.

 

[Wooster]

Similar alpha-gal story with my wife. About 10 years ago she woke up at midnight feeling itchy, diarrhea and face and tongue started to swell. Knew it was some kind of reaction, so she downed a bunch of Benedryl and made it through the night. Went to the allergist who identified it as possible alpha-gal reaction. Had never heard of it. Subsequent episodes got worse not better when she ingested meat or meat byproducts by accident, including after a cup of clam chowder where the cook had used beef stock. I was out of town on a hunt that night, and she had to wake up our young girls at midnight and drive to the ER. My daughter epi-penned her in the thigh while she was driving. She is very very careful now. I use to not worry about ticks. Much more careful these days.

 

[spike.t]

Never realised when I posted this that so many people were affected by it.....eye opening...thought it was a problem that had surfaced fairly recently.....

 

[SikaMDhunter]

Prevention is the best solution. For ticks the best is to us a 0.5% solution of permethrin sprayed on your clothes and allowed to dry completely. I prefer to use the 36.8% permethrin SFR concentrate and dilute it down to 0.5% because it's less expensive than buying the Sawyer ready to use spray. This quart container costs around $30 USD and will make several gallons of the diluted spray. The Sawyer stuff is almost $1 per ounce. Caveat - some states in the US and CAN will not allow people to buy the concentrate unless they own livestock or meet some other exception.

It's crazy that I go to Tractor Supply to save money on this stuff. I also get sheep ivermectin to give to my dogs. Heart worm medications for my dogs run $250+ for 3 month supply and a bottle of ivermectin that will last 5 years is $40. I have a Spanish Mastiff that weighs 175lbs and a Beagle that's 30lbs. Frontline and other flea/tick applications run hundreds. When I take the beagle out for rabbit hunts i spray him with permethrin and its better than any of the expensive stuff.