University of Massachusetts conducted a study about Lyme disease. The study demonstrates that the blood of the whitetail deer kills the corkscrew-shaped bacterium that causes Lyme disease. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that each year some 426,000 people are diagnosed with and treated for Lyme disease.  

Stephen Rich, a professor of microbiology, said, “Deer are vitally important to the survival of deer ticks, but they are not involved with transmitting the Lyme bacteria. We’ve known for some time that ticks taken from white-tailed deer are not infected and we speculated that something about the deer prevented those ticks from becoming infected.” 

Rich stated, “The ticks that bite us are actually looking for a deer because that’s where they breed. Without the deer, you don’t have ticks, but if you had only deer, you wouldn’t have any Lyme disease. Whatever it is in the deer that’s killing the germ in part of the innate immune system, a part of the immune system that precedes antibodies.”

The next research step is to determine the precise mechanisms in deer blood that kill the bacteria. Rich said, “We’d like to determine if it’s something we can induce in humans. Or maybe we could use this somehow to our advantage to reduce the incidence of Lyme disease in the wild.”

Scholarships for Students!

The Janice & Paul Kessler Scholarships Fund is accepting applications from qualified students who wish to receive scholarship assistance. These scholarships are potentially available to any New York State resident who has been accepted into an accredited institution of higher learning, and is, or will be, working toward obtaining a degree in some facet of Wildlife Management.

The scholarships will be distributed in the fall of 2023. To date, the fund has had the honor of distributing more than $32,000 in grants to deserving Wildlife Management students.

Application deadline is September 15th, 2023. More information, including applications is available at: keeslerscholarshipfund.org. 

Speer Ammo Will Supply the NYPD!

Speer Ammunition was awarded the New York Police Department (NYPD) 9mm duty and training handgun contract for Speer 124-grain Gold Dot. The duty handgun contract with the largest law enforcement agency in the United States will supply the NYPD for up to 5 years with an expected quantity of several million rounds.

Speer’s spokesperson said, “We are excited to report the NYPD chose Speer as their ammunition of choice. The approximate 36,000 officers will use this ammunition exclusively for duty and training.”