If you plan on visiting Lake Tahoe (a large freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada of the U.S.) anytime in the near future, you might want to make sure you’re thoroughly covered up and wearing some sort of natural insect repellent. A flea from a yellow chipmunk in the area tested positive for plague, the U.S. Forest Service announced June 6.
If you think fleas are annoying now, hold onto your collars; experts are warning that the little nuisances are becoming resistant to the popular flea control products that pet owners turn to in order to keep their little buddies itch-free.
Veterinarians are telling pet owners that flea treatments like Advantage and Frontline are a waste of money because they’re no longer effective at getting rid of fleas and keeping them away. The bugs have mutated in order to survive, it seems. [1]
A tiny flea, so small that most people wouldn’t notice the bug unless they were looking for it, bit a 16-year-old girl who was on a hunting trip in Oregon, giving her a rare case of bubonic plague.
