"Mice have three principal requirements to inhabit an area: variety of
food, nearby water, and ground cover, which is extremely important for
protection, whereas open space is dangerous." --The Ol Tracker
Mice are the culprits, not deer!
July 18, 2018

If you have spent much time in the wilderness then you probably have a deep rooted disgust for ticks. Especially when you've had the misfortune of having one of those creepy little bloodsuckers on you.
In an article prepared for a peer reviewed journal in the 1990's I recently discovered that the Ol Tracker himself had spent a summer with magnifying glass and tweezer in hand to study the effect of mice and deer on the tick population. (See: Lancet. 6/7/1997, Vol. 349 Issue 9066, p1668.)
What was discovered is that the deep woods and fields of the wilderness are not the places to find a proliferation of ticks, and though they are called deer ticks, the animals that cause their population to explode aren't the deer... it's the mice.
And so the environment that is most inhabited by the mice are those transition areas that lie between different areas, field and forest for instance. It is these areas that offer the mice everything they need in the form of shelter, water from dew, and food in the form of insects, seeds, and foliage.
The tick population is nearly ten times in these transition areas as it is in either of the areas that is being transitioned from; and thusly, the place to not be for any length of time is in one of these areas. So bear this in mind whenever you are taking to field or forest for a military tent camping adventure. Pitch that tent either deeper into the woods or way out in the meadow. The farther you are from the transition area, the farther you are from the mice population and the fewer ticks you will be susceptible to.