RATTLE SNAKES HELP CONTROL SPREAD OF LYME DISEASE

I took the photo right after I encountered this beautiful being while hiking a mountain trail in New Mexico yesterday.  It's a diamond back rattle snake and was completely non-aggressive.  After posting this image on Instagram (@revdzen), a friend messaged me saying rattle snakes help control lyme disease eating rodents which carry ticks which, in turn, carry lyme disease.  So I did some research about rattle snakes and lyme disease.  Here's the fascinating information I came across in an blog post by environmental writer William LeRoy:

• Scientists studied diets at four Eastern forest sites, the scientists were able to estimate how many small mammals the snakes consume. They then matched their estimates with information on the average number of ticks each small mammal carried. In the end, they found that each snake removed anywhere between 2,500 to 4,500 ticks from each site annually–that’s a huge benefit to humans.
  

LeRoy notes that rodents often carry ticks which, in turn, carry Lyme disease. If left untreated, this bacterial illness can cause serious neurological problems in humans.Spread by ticks that infect hosts by feeding on their blood, Lyme disease is currently on the rise in the United States.  

I suspect one reason why lyme disease is on the rise may be due to human interference with nature by the senseless killing of rattle snakes.  LeRoy says that "Nature is based upon intelligent design. This means that all living things have a role to play in the environment. It is a simple and unalterable fact, that if you remove one naturally occurring element (animal) from a functioning eco system, other elements (animals) will misalign, and very often to the determent of the entire system....The beauty around us is fragile and has been designed to work perfectly absent human intervention."