In reply to girlymonkey:
> While I think the spread of Lymes is worth tackling, I question whether effectively eradicating ticks will have other knock on effects.
I think this is a valid concern, but sometimes it's worth it.
They're spreading Lyme, but also quite a few other diseases in many places (including but not limited to TBE). Stopping this by killing them off would, in my opinion, be justified - and if there are serious knock-on consequences to that we should try to dampen them where possible.
Other diseases are often controlled or even eliminated by killing off carriers - such as water snails to control bilharzia, or mosquitos to control malaria or a variety of other nasties; doing this can save a lot of lives and improve the quality of a great many others.
All that said, the article doesn't actually talk about killing off ticks, just a method for reducing the numbers of them affecting livestock and the likelihood of them passing on diseases to them - so improving agricultural yields. It isn't immediately obvious how it could be rolled out to areas where ticks feed on wild animals, such as deer, rodents or birds.
Post edited at 11:25