Don't play with the squirrels, and don't leave your food laying around.

Just realizing of how those fleas could be carried home by the family pet. And here I thought the worst threat was deer ticks. Is this (plague) something more common in the West? I hadn't heard of any cases here in the East.

Anyway, I've hiked all over those mountains most of my life, much of it with my brother and his dog, and we spent a lot of time picking ticks off when the weather was right, and that dog LOVED squirrels. We never had a problem. It's the people who don't know or won't take the trouble that have issues, mostly.

He used to sit there and pick ticks off the dog for twenty minutes after a couple hours of walking in the Summer. We'd check ourselves evey couple hundred yards when there were a lot of ticks.

So, get a flea collar for your pets. Pick the ticks off now and then.

Plague is very common all over the world. So is anthrax for that matter, and ricin, the world is full of dangerous stuff. But it won't hunt you down if you don't go looking for it.

regularly, and it doesn't mean that people are going to start keeling over.

We have gotten a few up to half dozen cases of the plague pretty much every year, the longer we stay warm, the more the ticks and mites survive the winter, but the only thing that put us on the map was a couple cases of Haunta Virus a few years ago. Everybody crapped themselves until they realized that if you play with deer mouse poop, you are a 5% chance of catching it, then you only had a 98% chance of survival.

Scabies, whirling disease, wasting disease ...we got em all.

I can remember the plague found in the Sierras a few times, too.

It's still around and still deadly.

squirrels. Infected squirrels are found every year. If you see a dead squirrel or one with swellings on it, leave them alone.

guess plague fleas are still a problem.

Mostly in the mid-west. I just watched a documentary on it this morning.