{"id":121569,"date":"2022-10-11T05:17:30","date_gmt":"2022-10-11T11:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=121569"},"modified":"2022-10-11T12:01:03","modified_gmt":"2022-10-11T18:01:03","slug":"ticks-rabbits-and-family-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2022\/10\/11\/ticks-rabbits-and-family-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Ticks, Rabbits And Family History"},"content":{"rendered":"

Occasionally I rerun a favorite older blog post. This one was originally published in August of 2014. For this version I’ve changed the title, edited the text, cleaned up the formatting and added two photos and the notes at the end of the post.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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Rabbits are notorious for having heavy tick infestations. Some of my Mormon pioneer ancestors shared a related fate, as did Brigham Young.<\/p>\n

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It isn’t unusual for me to see rabbits with many ticks, especially on their ears. I photographed this one near the hay barn on Antelope Island. The ears of rabbits, with less protective hair than the rest of the body, seem to be where most of the ticks congregate. Some rabbits appear to be completely free of them while others are obviously heavily infested.<\/p>\n

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Here’s another one I found on the island. The inside of its ears also had ticks.<\/p>\n

Whenever I see one of these poor tick-infested rabbits I think of my great-great grandparents. I hope you’ll indulge me in a little family history as I explain why.<\/p>\n

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In the “old west” many early pioneers became seriously ill soon after they reached the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. They thought the mysterious illness was caused by the combination of hot days and cold nights in the mountains so they called it “mountain fever”.<\/p>\n

The incidence of illness was high – in some wagon trains as high as 50%. Some died but most did not, though they were extremely ill with wide-ranging symptoms such as chills, muscle and joint pain, headache, deep pain behind the eyes, lumbar back pain, nausea and vomiting.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0Image courtesy of Daughters of Utah Pioneers<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

My great-great grandparents, Oliver and Mary Ann Dudley, were early Mormon pioneers who crossed the plains in wagons from Winter Quarters, Nebraska (near present-day Omaha) to Utah Territory in 1850. During the trip both Oliver and Mary Ann became extremely ill with mountain fever so there were no adults to drive the wagon and their 15 year old daughter (also named Mary Ann) had to drive it more than halfway across the plains, foothills and mountains as her disabled parents rode in the back. I often think of what that experience must have been like for all of them.<\/p>\n

Thanks to the research of Jay A. Aldous from the University of Utah (and a few others) we know that “mountain fever” was what we now call Colorado Tick Fever, a disease caused by a virus transmitted by the Rocky Mountain Wood Tick (Dermacentor andersoni). The pioneers rarely rode in their wagons because of the extra load on their animals (besides, those wagons had no springs and it was a jarring experience to ride in one) so everyone walked almost the entire trip. And once they reached the foothills of the Rockies they were largely walking through sagebrush where huge numbers of ticks laid in ambush. In a letter to a friend in 1848 Thomas Bullock wrote (original spelling and punctuation used):<\/p>\n