An important study of tick-bourne illnesses conducted last fall by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) revealed high rates of Lyme disease, rocky mountain spotted fever group and anaplasmosis in members of the Wampanoag tribe and other Vineyarders.

Spokesmen for the CDC, headquartered in Atlanta, have declined to provide any details of the study before receiving final approval from the tribe. Health director of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), Ron MacLaren told the Gazette last week he could give no time line on when and if findings from the study would be released.

Mr. MacLaren added that the release of study findings depends on a tribal council decision. Tribal administrator Tobias Vanderhoop has said he is unable provide information about when the study will be released.

But the Gazette has learned some early results of the study. “The prevalence of infection indicated to us that there are a great deal of ticks,” a CDC researcher told the newspaper.

“It’s something everyone knows, but it’s very important. The pathogens make people very sick and once you’re infected, you can be re-infected.”

Though a focal point for the study was another tick-borne illness, tularemia, evidence of the rare disease was so scant in the samples that the researchers were unable to determine how it had been transmitted, according to CDC sources.

With Lyme disease at epidemic proportions on Martha’s Vineyard, Dr. Sam Telford, associate professor of the department of biomedical sciences (infectious diseases) at Tufts University, will lead a forum on tick-borne diseases Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Tisbury Senior Center.

Mr. Telford, who is a leading expert in the study of tick-borne illness in New England, underscored the importance of Thursday’s forum.

“Anyone who is interested in the future of the Island should attend, and consider me as a resource. Maybe we can’t do something appreciable right away, but we should be trying to make this a place to live for our grandchildren,” he said.

“The big news in the tick world is that we know how to kill ticks. However, we don’t yet know how to get people to do it.”

Mr. Telford points to three significant factors in the prevalence of Lyme disease on the Vineyard, two of which are very difficult to do anything about.

First, Mr. Telford said, the acres of abandoned farm land on the Vineyard are a fertile breeding ground for ticks. This landscape is unlikely to change, because people are reluctant to alter what they see as natural wilderness, he said.

“People see vegetation and think that’s how it has always been and are very reluctant to make changes,” he said.

The inexorable rise in population numbers and the accompanying development mean that people are living closer to tick habitats, said Mr. Telford. He noted that all deer ticks come from a deer population that is unusually large on the Vineyard.

“The number of deer we have is not natural,” said Mr. Telford.

The Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife estimates that 35 to 45 deer exist in each square mile of the Vineyard. Mr. Telford urges a substantial reduction of the deer population. “The answer doesn’t have to be as extreme [as culling] but a lot of people hunt deer, and it can mean tourist dollars in the off season. At the moment, they are not hunted sufficiently to maintain or reduce their numbers.

“In the old days it used to be a pleasure to see a deer. Nowadays your first thought is to call the car insurance company,” Mr. Telford said.

Reducing deer numbers and vegetation identified as critical to tick breeding are two crucial steps, said Mr. Telford. He also emphasized the avoidance of tick-infested areas, the wearing of protective clothing and conducting regular personal checks.

“You can act individually, as a group immediately, and as a community looking to the long term,” he said.

Beyond depleting their habitats and food sources, people can exterminate ticks, at least in the short term, he added.

“There are licensed pest applicators that you can apply to your land. There is no such thing as environmentally harmless, but there are shades of harm,” he said. “It doesn’t get rid of them, but it temporarily abates the problem. You may have to do it twice a year.”

The first recorded deer tick virus fatality in New York state this May involved the death of a 62-year-old man from meningoencephalitis, apparently after being bitten by a deer tick infected with a strain of Lyme.

Ironically, it was Mr. Telford who discovered this particular strain of the virus 10 years ago, and cleared it as a rare strain of little consequence after extensive study with a team of researchers.

“It’s yet another reason to address tick prevention, though it’s not cause for panic,” he said.

Mr. Telford has been working on tick biology for 25 years. Mr. Telford’s research funding from Tufts University is for the study of tularemia on the Island.

The Vineyard produces one-tenth of all tularemia cases in America each year.

Even more remarkable, most of the recent tularemia cases are respiratory infections, a finding unique to the Vineyard within United States.

In 2001 an outbreak of the disease infected 14 and killed one in a single summer on the Island.

Tularemia is most often found in dog ticks. Mr. Telford’s team found the disease in five to 10 per cent of ticks tested. However, the transmittal of tularemia from that source is low on the Vineyard.

How the disease is spread remains a mystery. It is thought some cases were spread through contact with animal corpses disturbed by mowers during landscaping work. More than a third of the cases have been transmitted through means other than a dog tick.

“We’re trying to identify [what causes it], but we have landscapers who have had it and they know they haven’t run over a rabbit,” he said.

There are some 90 to 100 cases of tularemia a year in the United States, said Mr. Telford.

“The Vineyard has been famous for having dog ticks in its beach grass since the 1920s, so why on earth are we seeing tularemia now? We’ve been working on this seven to eight years, and we’re still scratching our heads about Martha’s Vineyard’s prolonged outbreak. And it’s not a prolonged outbreak any longer; it’s endemic . . . . The respiratory illness is not seen anywhere else. It’s just so bizarre,” he said.

The Vineyard and Nantucket are in the top 10 or top five areas of the country for the concentration of ticks and tick-borne illnesses. Mr. Telford points to the Vineyard’s glacial ecology and maritime habitat as being conducive to ticks.