Foxes and the Fight Against Lyme Disease in France

According to French zoologists who have made a study of it, the Red Fox (Fr. Renard roux) is crucial to the control of Lyme Disease in France. They note that the increase in cases of Lyme Disease coincides with the decrease in Red Fox numbers. In France they are very often viewed as pests and hunted mercilessly. Up to a million are killed by hunters every year. Since cases of Lyme Disease continue to rise, and farmers struggle with rodents ravaging their crops, it seems high time to give Reynard the respect he deserves for his significant role in the regulation of our ecosystems.

 Lyme Disease is a degenerative zoonotic disease, which can be treated if it is diagnosed in time. Unfortunately due to lack of recognition in the past, it has often been left to turn into a chronic disease in France. It is transmitted via a tick infected with the bacteria complex Borrelia burgdoferi.

 The bacteria requires a damp habitat and so is most often found in or near woodland. Using as hosts wild vertebrates such as rodents or domesticated animals, the bacteria transfers from the host to the tick when the tick requires a blood meal. The tick may then pass it on in the same fashion to humans.

That said though, just because we are bitten by an infected tick does not mean we will contract the disease. It all depends on the life stage of the tick. Fewer than 1% of people bitten by a tick will be infected, and it requires a tick nymph to have been attached for at least 17 hours. The main season of risk is April to June, and sometimes in the autumn. Numbers of cases peaked in 2018 with a couple of hundred thousand incidences, but even now with better public education, there are around 60 000 new cases every year.

The principal cause for the increase in Lyme Disease is climate change. In addition, and all the current science is in agreement about this, the other significant factor is a lack of Red Foxes in rural areas and/or domestic cats in urban settings to control the rodent carriers of the bacteria. It has been demonstrated by several studies that a reduction over time of the Red Fox population in an area correlates to an increase in cases of Lyme Disease.

The rodents most likely to be carrying the bacteria are the Bank Vole (Fr. Campagnol roussatre) and the Wood Mouse (Fr. Mulot sylvestre). Their main predators are the Red Fox and the Beech Marten (Fr. Fouine), and the numbers of rodents go down when the activities of these two predators go up. The Red Fox does not itself play a role in infecting the ticks. Rather it is the population density of the rodents which directly affects the numbers of ticks, infected or not. The fewer rodents, the fewer ticks and the more Red Foxes. When the balance between rodents and foxes is optimal, there are four times fewer infected ticks.

So why has the Red Fox been considered a pest for so long and so persistently? Like the crow, it has partly to do with how the fox is represented in fairytales and fables. The fox is a cunning and crafty character in these stories. The red colour of the fox's pelt is associated with the Devil or Evil. Despite this, it was hunted for its fur. But bit by bit it became hunted because of being a vector for diseases transmissable to humans. The best known of these diseases is rabies, which was eradicated in France by 2001.

Red Foxes in good health and free from rabies were able to defend their territories from foxes coming in from elsewhere. But the next thing you know is that they were accused of spreading alveolar echinoccosis (Fox Tapeworm). However, this disease seems to be restricted to the east of France, and globally only 15% of new cases annually are in France. There are on average 2 human deaths a year from this disease in France.

Red Foxes are a very adaptable species and can be found everywhere from the seaside to high up in the mountains. It has been estimated that they each eat about 6000 rodents a year, thus keeping disease transmission low and protecting crops and young trees from damage by rabbits and voles. Rather than poison the food chain and the environment by laying baits for rodents it makes more sense to simply let foxes do their thing.

What do Hornets Ever do for Us?

Here in the Touraine Loire Valley we co-exist with two species of hornet. Hornets, for those of you unfamiliar with the beasts, are gigantic wasps. 

 

European Hornet predating a European Wasp Vespula germanica on our back doormat.

 

One of the species in the Touraine is the Yellow-legged Asian Hornet Vespa vetulina (Fr. Frelon asiatique). They are non-native and have colonised the whole of France in under two decades. Now abundant, everyone hates them, especially beekeepers, but no successful and sustainable method of controlling them has been developed, so we all just have to live with them as best we can. I find ignoring them completely works quite well, except when they are predating the feral honey bee colony in our courtyard wall. Then their behaviour is just too fascinating to ignore.

 

European Hornet at its nest entry in a tree stump. Minutes earlier I had actually put my hand inside without realising there was a hornets' nest. The hornets did not react in any way.

 

The second species of hornet here is the European Hornet Vespa crabro (Fr. Frelon européen). Sadly, not everyone can tell them apart, and all of a sudden anything even vaguely hornety is considered fair game and something to panic about. So, once again, for those of you confused about how to tell the difference -- European Hornets are yellow and chestnut brown, and very big, as insects go; Yellow-legged Asian Hornets are mostly black, with a couple of orangey yellow bands on the abdomen, and they are quite big, but not as big as European Hornets. Yellow-legged Asian Hornets have bright yellow legs, European Hornets have chestnut brown legs. Neither of these two species should be confused with Oriental Hornets V. orientalis (only in a few places in the south of France) or Asian Giant Hornets V. mandarinia (not in Europe at all), or Median Wasps Dolichovespula media. Most picture editors working in social or mainstream media can't tell one species of hornet from another, or indeed tell a hornet from a wasp, and so there is an awful lot of nonsense and misidentification online.

 

A European Hornet being put outside. I had offered it a towel to sit on and it felt secure.

 

So why should we learn the difference and be careful to cherish our European Hornets rather than fear and kill them?

• They are part of our natural biodiversity in the Touraine, and given the biodiversity crisis we are currently in, we need to protect all our native species to ensure a stable and resilient ecology in the face of climate change and habitat destruction. 
• Specifically, they are predators, and maintaining predators is a key part of maintaining a stable ecology. Predators do not have to be creatures with fur and fangs.
  
• They are good pollinators.
• They are rarely aggressive to humans (unless they feel their nest is threatened).
• Their nests are not long lasting, so the colony will die off over winter without you intervening with traps or poison. Save your money and effort.
  
• They predate wasps (and you are much more likely to be stung by a wasp than a hornet). 
• If you expect people in other countries to live alongside wildlife such as lions, bears or elephants without harming them then you should be able to tolerate large generally inoffensive insects going about their business in your presence.
• If you remove a predator species such as hornets you will then struggle to control their prey (eg fly maggots, sawfly grubs, moth caterpillars, other grubs, various insects).
• If you poison them what else are you harming?
• They will beat up on any Yellow-legged Asian Hornet entering their territory and trying to compete for prey. 

 

European Hornet in our attic. They fly both day and night if the weather is warm, and are attracted to lights, so often come in open windows on summer nights.

 

If you are a gardener, hornets are not a menace, but an ally, keeping your garden biodiversity balanced, and pollinating your flowers. They might be fierce looking, but just let them be and they will do the same for you. 

Further reading: My blog post about Yellow-legged Asian Hornets, their lookalikes, and what to do about them  https://daysontheclaise.blogspot.com/2012/09/what-to-do-about-asian-hornets.html

My species page on European Hornet on Loire Valley Nature  https://loirenature.blogspot.com/2013/12/european-hornet-vespa-crabro.html 

All photos from our archives and taken by me.

Palets Bretons

Yet another plain old fashioned recipe that I have made several times during the course of Simon's radiotherapy. These simple shortbread like biscuits make an ideal snack if you are stuck at the hospital and can't eat much. 

 

Ingredients

2 egg yolks

100 g sugar

100 g room temperature salted butter

1 tsp vanilla paste

140 g plain flour

½ tsp baking powder

Method

1. Beat the egg yolks and sugar for 2 minutes until the mixture goes pale.
2. Add the butter and vanilla and beat for another 2 minutes.
3. Shift in the flour and baking powder and stir until it forms a dough.
4. Roll the dough into a cylinder 10 - 15 cm long. Make sure to square off the ends so you have an even diameter along the whole length.
5. Wrap the cylinder of dough and refrigerate for 3 hours.
6. Heat the oven to 180°C and line a baking tray with baking paper.
7. Cut the dough cylinder into 12 mm slices and place them on the tray, spaced out by a couple of centimetres.
8. Put the tray in the oven and drop the temperature to 150°C.
9. Bake for 18 minutes.
10. Cool on the tray.

Makes about a dozen biscuits.

These deliciously crumbly buttery biscuits are emblematic of Breton cuisine, containing the four basic ingredients that many Breton cakes are made of -- egg yolks, sugar, flour and salted butter. To be a true palet breton the recipe must contain at least 20% salted butter. Surprisingly, they are a 20th century invention, developed by an enterprising baker in Finistere in 1920. He took the traditional sablé and galette bretonne and made a thicker, more rustic looking biscuit, reminiscent of Scottish shortbread. Nowadays commercial palets bretons are protected with an IGP, so must be made in the traditional way, in Brittany, if they are to be labelled and sold as palets bretons. Or you can do as I have, and make them yourself at home. They are easy, but rely on quality ingredients, particularly the butter, to be really good.

An Update on My Treatment

Today is the end of week 6 of 7 of my treatment, leaving me just 7 days to go.

This is because I missed one day while they we doing monthly maintenance on the zapper (I assume putting more particles in it) and again on Monday, when the machine wasn't functioning. Unfortunately, they didn't let us know until I was half way to Tours, so I had a swap of taxis in Veigne and came home again.

Yesterday the taxi diverted to pick up another passenger in Loches. This happened while I was there

I have found the past 3 weeks really difficult. It's only the past couple of days where my digestive system has stabilised, and before that I was having to be tested at the hospital then sent off to do more drinking. I was beginning to think that they suspected I wasn't preparing properly, but when I showed them a list of my previous 4 days consumption they softened a lot. From my list of prohibited food I further omitted all dairy, all wheat, all veg except potatoes, and coffee.

That left me with spuds, rice, chicken, white fish, processed white ham, and cordial. For some strange reason, I'm also allowed quince jelly, so I've been having that on rice crackers for breakfast. A couple of times I have snuck in an egg white omelette, but that's about it. It was 4 days of that and 3 kinds of diarrhoea medication before I settled down.

Still - I'm almost there. Roll on my finishing day.

Grasshoppers at la Cabane

La Cabane is a Zone Naturelle d'Intérêt Ecologique, Faunistique et Floristique that I have been monitoring for some years. It is grassland with scrub, surrounding a former kaolin extraction pit which is now full of water. The site is waterlogged in the winter, hot and dry in the summer. In early September Ingrid and I visited to survey for the caterpillar food plants of a rare moth. We didn't find any of the target species but we did take the opportunity to record and photograph these grasshoppers.

Broad Green Winged Grasshopper Aiolopus strepens (Fr. Oedipode autumnal or criquet farouche):  The hind tibiae are red, the femora particularly thick, and the wing cases have a characteristic clear contrasting pattern of two pale spots. The wings are bluish at the base and have a dark spot at the tip. The species is found in the southern half of France, and Corsica, on hot dry sites.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

Jersey Grasshopper Euchorthippus declivus (Fr. Criquet du brome): A species that favours long grass on dry calcareous soil. Typically they have wings that are shorter than their abdomen, but long winged individuals are sometimes seen.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

Woodland Grasshopper Omocestus rufipes (Fr. Criquet noir ébène): This species is found throughout Europe and northern Asia. In France it is present in most areas, but absent from Finisterre and Paris and surrounds. The abdomen is green at the front, turning yellow in the middle and red at the tip. The legs often have some red too. This grasshopper isn't fussy and will live in a range of habitats. It can be found in hot arid grassland, rocky areas, but also damp grassland and fallow ground. Adults can be seen from June to November.

Female.

 

Male

Photo courtesy of Ingrid de Winter.

Walking in the Forest of Boussay

On a warm evening 19 September les Galoches walked 5 kilometres in the Forest of Boussay. We thought we might see some edible mushrooms, but none were spotted. Here is some of what we did see.

Panther Cap mushroom Amanita pantherina (Fr. Amanite panthère).

Agile Frog Rana dalmatina (Fr. Grenouille agile).

Managed oak forest.

Goldenrod Solidago virgaurea (Fr. Solidage verge d'or).

A humungeous tree stump.