LYME DISEASE: The Lyme-disease infection rate is growing. So is the battle over how to treat it. “Today, deer are no longer exotic in the Hudson Valley, and the area has the highest rate of Lyme disease in the country. If you drive the back roads of Columbia County at dusk, deer are nearly impossible to avoid, and accidents are common. Ticks are constantly on residents’ minds, and watching children run barefoot to the edge of the bucolic woods is no longer a carefree delight. Deer are not Ixodes’s most important host, but they have come to symbolize the spread of Lyme, and represent an ecology that has changed dramatically in the past thirty-five years.”

Hunt ’em until they’re rare again. Venison is tasty! And as for the white-footed mice — cats? Or maybe bring back DDT . . . .