Spring Tick Tubes Session – May 15 2019 from 8pm to 9pm

KMCA will host a Tick Tube making session for the community on 15 May from 8 to 9 pm. Tick tubes are the most effective way to reduce the number of ticks on your property making it much safer for outdoor activity and play. Ticks can transit Lyme disease.

Tick tubes are cotton balls soaked in Permethrin stuffed inside a toilet paper roll. Mice take the soft cotton balls back to their nests while the Permethrin kills the ticks but does not harm the mice. Buying pre-made tick tubes costs $80 but the KMCA is offering them at a subsidized rate of $10.

Pre-payment is required. Please use the form below. Payment is by Paypal, and you will be redirected to Paypal after entering your information. Location information will be sent after you register.

Registration is limited to the first 22 registrants.

Jonathan Aghion

Chairman, Deer Committee
Kemp Mill Civic Association

Name:
Email:

Fall Tick Tubes Session – October 2018

KMCA is offering tick tubes for a subsidized rate. Tick tubes are the most effective way to reduce the number of ticks on your property making it safer for outdoor activity. Ticks can transit Lyme disease. Tick tubes are cotton balls soaked in Permethrin stuffed inside a toilet paper roll. Mice take the soft cotton balls back to their nests while the Permethrin kills the ticks but does not harm the mice. Buying pre-made tick tubes costs $80 but the KMCA is making the tick tubes buying the materials and offering them at a subsidized rate of $10.

Pre-payment is required. Please use the form below. Payment is by Paypal, and you will be redirected to Paypal after entering your information. Once you e paid you will contacted with pickup instructions.

Jonathan Aghion

Chairman, Deer Committee
Kemp Mill Civic Association

Sorry, this event is over. Watch for the next session in Spring 2019.

Spring Tick Tubes Session – April 16 2018

KMCA is planning a Spring Make Your Own Tick Tube Session on April 16, 2018 from 8-9pm at Kemp Mill Elementary School. This will be open to both members and non-members. Tick tubes are the most effective way to reduce the number of ticks on your property making it safer for outdoor activity. Ticks can transit Lyme disease. Tick tubes are cotton balls soaked in Permethrin stuffed inside a toilet paper roll. Mice take the soft cotton balls back to their nests while the Permethrin kills the ticks but does not harm the mice. Buying pre-made tick tubes costs $80 but the KMCA is buying the materials and offering this event (led by an instructor) at a subsidized rate of $11. You will leave with 24 tick tubes and instructions on how to make more yourself.

Start saving your toilet paper and paper towel rolls to help bring down the cost of the event.

For this event we are requiring reservations and pre-payment so we can buy the correct amount of materials. Please use the form below. Payment is by Paypal, and you will be redirected to Paypal after entering your information.

Jonathan Aghion

Chairman, Deer Committee
Kemp Mill Civic Association

Sorry, this event is over. Watch for the next session in Spring 2019.

Reminder-tick tubes event Tuesday and Thursday night. Free for those who cannot afford it7

Reminder: the KMCA is making Tick Tubes 8 pm on Tuesday August 29th and 8 pm, August 31st at Young Israel Shomrai Emunah (1132 Arcola, at the entrance of the Kemp Mill Shopping Center). You only need to attend one session.

Tick tubes are the most effective when used in the early and late summer over a 1-acre area, so bring your neighbors.

The cost is $10 at the door but will be free for those who cannot afford it. You will leave with 24 tick tubes and instructions on how to make more yourself. 24 tubes treat 1/2 acre until the next mouse nesting season in the early summer.

Come to also learn what you can do to make your property less attractive to mice, deer and ticks and hear an update on how Montgomery Parks and the KMCA are addressing the deer overpopulation.

Bring all those toilet paper rolls you’ve been saving!

RSVP to aghion@gmail.com.

Jonathan Aghion

Chairman, Deer Committee

Kemp Mill Civic Association

Tick Tubes

KMCA is in the early stages of planning a Make Your Own Tick Tube Session for members. Tick tubes are the most effective way to reduce the number of ticks on your property making it safer for outdoor activity. Ticks can transit Lyme disease. Tick tubes are cotton balls soaked in Permethrin stuffed inside a toilet paper roll. Mice take the soft cotton balls back to their nests while the Permethrin kills the ticks but does not harm the mice. Buying pre-made tick tubes costs $80 but the KMCA is buying the materials and offering this event (led by an instructor) at a subsidized rate ($20 or less…TBD). You will leave with 24 tick tubes and instructions on how to make more yourself.

Start saving your toilet paper and paper towel rolls to help bring down the cost of the event.

Jonathan Aghion

Chairman, Deer Committee
Kemp Mill Civic Association

Deer Hunting Information

At the March KMCA membership meeting there was a presentation by bowhunters who hunt in suburban areas to help reduce deer overpopulation.

The below information is related to that presentation.  You can download this as Word document at this link:  A Citizens Guide to Safe Bow & Arrow Hunting in Suburban Neighborhoodsdraft flyer for bowhunting in residential neighborhoods


 

A Citizens Guide to Safe Bow and Arrow Hunting for Suburban Neighborhoods in Montgomery County, Maryland

As deer populations have increased, suburban and urban areas face too many deer. In some suburbs, the deer population exceeds 400 animals per square mile, while the carrying capacity of the land is about 40 animals per square mile. Although pleasing to watch, large numbers of free roaming deer increase the risk of human injury from deer-vehicle collisions.  They spread debilitating and costly diseases such as Lyme, Babesiosis, and Ehrlichia Chaffensis.  Deer cause great damage each year to landscaping in our yards. Worse, deer have destroyed the understory of many of our regional, community and stream valley parks, denuding hillsides of native plants, destroying habitat for other species, accelerating soil erosion and promoting thebtakeover of invasive species. Some naturalists now consider overabundant deer as significant a threat to the bird population as climate change. And too many young deer make your neighborhood very attractive for predators such as coyotes to move in – a situation we are beginning to experience in Montgomery County.

YOU CAN HELP CHANGE THIS FOR THE BETTER.

Other options for deer management such as feeding, exclusionary fencing and chemical “birth control” are impractical and prohibitively expensive. Regulated hunting, specifically bowhunting, is a safe, ethical, humane and efficient method for decreasing the number of deer in our residential neighborhoods. It provides deer population control at the least cost because bow hunters do the “work” of removing deer as a public service.

THE BOWHUNTING OPTION

Bowhunting has been shown to be a safe, effective way to decrease the size of suburban deer herds. Hundreds of metro areas including Fairfax County, Virginia, Columbus, Ohio, the Pittsburgh suburbs, and many cities in Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin and Canada allow bowhunting. Few problems and no accidents have been reported. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources supports the use of bowhunting to curb deer populations.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW

• National surveys show that most deer harvested with a bow are shot at distances of 20 yards or less, which makes it ideal for hunting in and around urban/suburban areas.

• Bowhunters typically hunt from elevated positions or tree stands which means an arrow is shot downward into the target or into the ground.

• A hunting arrow, under most conditions, cannot travel any appreciable distance once it hits even a twig or small limb.

• Archery is one of the safest sports in the United States. Most accidents involve the bowhunter falling out of a tree stand. In Maryland and Virginia there have been no recorded incidents involving injury to persons, pets or property caused by a bowhunter.

• Deer taken by reputable hunters are never “wasted.” All the meat (venison) is used, either by hunter or by donation to local food banks, soup kitchens and shelters through an organization called Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry (FHFH.ORG).

• Property owners who wish to obtain venison may do so through arrangement with their Many individuals know little about hunting and, most particularly, bowhunting. Bowhunting in residential neighborhoods should never be undertaken by amateurs, but left to well-trained, skilled sportsmen

HOW TO FIND A RELIABLE BOWHUNTER

In Montgomery County, several groups can link you to a bowhunter. The Animal Connection Deer Management Team – ACDMT – is an organization of seasoned, veteran bowhunters with strict rules and enforcement to ensure the safety of hunters and the public. Most members of ACDMT are members of the Maryland Bowhunters Society, an organization dedicated to preserving and promoting safe and responsible bowhunting; educating the non-hunting public about the role of the bowhunter in wildlife management and conservation; and educating bowhunters in safety, shooting skills, hunting techniques and landowner relations. Both groups strongly advocate ethical bowhunting within the laws of the jurisdiction hunted. Learn more about the ACDMT from their website at www.acdmt.org and contact them via email at deer.help@acdmt.org. A third group, the Bow Hunting Fire Fighters of Maryland, can be contacted through the website www.BHFFMD.com

MEET WITH A BOWHUNTER

Not every suburban yard is appropriate for bowhunting. The bowhunter will first tell you if your property has a suitable location for hunting. If it does, the bowhunter should provide you with copies of his/her hunting license, safety certificate, a signed release of  liability form, a copy of the permission form for you to sign; and copies of the permission form for your neighbors to sign, if needed. Your contract or agreement with the bowhunter may stipulate what days and times hunting may take place; how you will know the hunter is at work; where the hunter will be shooting from; where bait will be located; whether the hunter may field dress the animal and leave remains on your property or not; and whether you wish to be gifted with a deer for your own consumption.

GET YOUR NEIGHBORS TO SUPPORT YOUR OBJECTIVE

Under Montgomery County law, all owners of inhabited property within 100 yards of the hunting location must give signed permission before hunting takes place. If your neighbors have questions or express reluctance, it will help if you hold a meeting with your neighbors and the bowhunter. The bowhunter can then explain how, where and when the hunting will take place. It  is crucial that your neighbors understand that this form of hunting is safe, humane, and presents no risk to people, pets or property. They must provide you and the hunter with their signed permission forms agreeing to the hunting that will take place on your property. It is also wise to have their agreement that, in the rare event a deer is wounded and moves onto their property, the hunter may enter their property to euthanize and remove the deer.

Animal Connection Deer Management Team www.acdmt.org

Bow Hunting Fire Fighters of Maryland www.BHFFMD.com

Maryland Bowhunters Society ww.marylandbowhunterssociety.org


 

Deer, Deer Ticks, and Lyme disease

What you can do about Deer Ticks, Deer, and the potential of Lyme disease

 Unfortunately, people in Kemp Mill are continuing to contract Lyme disease from deer ticks. The ticks are hard to spot, and the infection is hard to diagnose, and potentially difficult to treat. Kemp Mill has one of the highest concentrations of deer, which correlates with a higher incidence of Lyme disease and car accidents. The Civic Association is continuing to explore ways to reduce the local deer population, including taking advantage of relaxed restrictions on County-regulated bow-and-arrow hunting. In the meantime, you can protect yourselves through some of the following means:

 

ON YOUR PROPERTY

Damminix tick tubes

You can buy them on the website: http://www.ticktubes.com/

Put them in the ground on your property, and they reduce the risk of Lyme disease by using mice that burrow underground as “couriers” to kill disease carrying deer ticks.

 

ON YOUR CLOTHES

Permethrin spray

You can buy them on the website:

http://www.drugstore.com/repel-permethrin-clothing-and-gear-insect-repellent-aerosol/qxp463421

There are good prices on this website for this effective repellant spray that is hard to find in local stores to use on clothes against deer ticks. This article evaluates Permethrin as repellent to deer ticks:

http://www.lymeneteurope.org/info/deet-versus-permethrin-as-a-tick-repellent

 

 

TO PROTECT YOUR GARDENS

Deerbusters Fencing

Order from their warehouse in Frederick, MD:

888-422-3337; http://www.deerbusters.com/deer-fence-rolls/

They sell a variety of plastic fences in 7.5- to 8-foot heights that are much more heavy-duty than anything available at retail stores.  The distributors are also very knowledgeable about installing, and will offer advice over the phone.  The plastic mesh fencing is the only type allowed by county regulations to be over 6.5 feet tall.

 

Ira Ungar

President, Kemp Mill Civic Association