In the mid-1920s, William R. Angell brought nine white-tailed deer to North Manitou Island for hunting; by the early 1980s, the herd was estimated at 2,000

Imagine nine deer stepping off a boat onto a quiet island in Lake Michigan. That’s how it began. Almost a century later, scientists are still trying to figure out what those six deer did to the island. A 2021 study on North and South Manitou islands, published by researchers including Jean Tsao of Michigan State University in the journal Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases, used the islands as a natural experiment to understand how the presence or absence of deer affects tick populations and the pathogens they carry. Their work helps explain how one hunting idea reshaped the island's ecosystem.

A rich man's hunting dream