Published on 24 April 2011 - 10:14am
The humble tick has been voted the most hated creature in the Netherlands. The insect’s fearsome reputation as a bloodsucker and spreader of disease earned it almost 20 percent of all votes cast by the listeners of Dutch radio show Vroege Vogels [Early Birds].
The popular nature programme has produced a Top 50 of most hated creatures based on its listeners’ votes. Over 48,000 votes were cast during a two-month period, 9,457 of them for the tick. The insect has attracted considerable media coverage in recent years as a carrier of Lyme disease, a potentially debilitating condition with a wide range of symptoms.
The radio show announced the full Top 50 in its Easter Sunday broadcast. Invertebrates feature heavily on the list. The Top 50 contains 9 mammals and 11 birds but the rest is made up of insects, spiders, mites and molluscs.
The programme makers promise to highlight the more positive and useful aspects of the unpopular creatures, as well as their less loveable characteristics. They will also answer the much-asked question of why it wasn’t possible to vote for humans in the survey.
http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/tick-voted-netherlands%E2%80%99-most-hated-creature
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