Everyone in my family, including pets living and deceased, has gotten Lyme Disease at least once except for the five-year old boy. And it’s only a matter of time with him. This is true especially this year. I have never seen a tick season like we’re having- not even close. Virtually every time I step outside, I find a tick crawling on me. So far, most of been of the less worrisome dog tick variety. But last week we started finding the Lyme-carrying deer ticks, too. Ordinarily, I only get ticks when I venture into tall grass or occasionally they come inside on a dog and wind up on a person. But I can’t sit on my patio without them crawling on me.
So, I got curious. What explains this explosion in the tick population.
As best as I can surmise, the answer is counterintuitive. Cold weather kills ticks and we had a very cold winter. But it’s nice and toasty under the snow where the warmth from the Earth gets trapped. Therefore, if it’s super cold, the ticks will die off. But if it’s super cold and there’s snow on the ground that doesn’t melt for weeks at a time, then the ticks don’t die off and there is a population boom in the Spring.
Apparently, this is what has happened. And now I have the heebie jeebies. I think every little itch is a tick, which seems to be true about half the time.
A few years ago, we were overrun with stink bugs from China. They’re still with us, but not at the ridiculous levels that they were. A while before that, we had the introduction of the mosquito-borne West Nile Virus.
What’s next, earthquakes and volcanos?
Come to think of it, we had an earthquake a couple of years ago. The epicenter was down in Virginia and I wouldn’t be surprised if fracking caused it.
It used to be, the only thing to worry about in the Mid-Atlantic was the occasional flooding from the remnants of a tropical storm and, very rarely, a tornado.
In any case, I’m glad that Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut is trying to get some funding to research Lyme Disease.
We’re sick of that particular malady.
We had wet winter and colder than the two or three previous years, so wet that a lot of the undergrowth got parked out last fall. But this year we have lots more undergrowth and thus more browse for deer carrying the ticks in our area. Until it got hot recently, it’s been bad and mostly deer ticks, not dog ticks.
One of the recent findings is that opossums love ticks. I find that encouraging. Someone could possibly make a business out of that, like the poison-ivy-eating goats.
It’s biblical-style punishment for allowing Republicans to control Congress.
Guinea Hens, and I hear chickens too, love to eat ticks. Might try picking up a half-dozen or so to free-range on your property and they will knock them down.
Worked pretty well on my Flemington farm property back in the 80s. But that was before this whole climate change thing happened, right? 😉
Lyme and Blumenthal rhyme with Connecticut, believe it or not.
Booman, I also live in Chester Co. and I am now treating Lyme disease w/antibiotics. Nice big bulls-eye rash this time, which is my 3rd. I’m sure shifting weather patterns due to increased GG levels will provide all kinds of “interesting” effects in the future.
Reintroduce wolves! Just kidding, but all those cute deer (and some other warm fuzzy forest critters )are largely responsible for the spread of the tick. East coast deer populations are way too high. Cull the deer to cut down on the disease. Plus, they are an excellent source of protein!
IIRC the Lyme disease cycle involve ticks, deer, and mice.
One interesting item I ran across a few years back was a “deer feeder” (yeah, they’re gonna eat your stuff anyway, so why not chose what they eat?) where the food contained deer birth-control hormones, and anti-tick pesticide on pads that gets rubbed on the deer’s neck when they go for the food.
“Plus, they are an excellent source of protein!”
Only in areas where deer can feed on corn. My parents live in the mountains of NC, and the deer are just about inedible there, because they feed on acorns…
Ditto. Of course brings to mind the meme that the bugs will win in the end. We’re seeing all kinds of crazy bug issues. Latest this morning was a declared infestation of weevils that have hit the alfalfa fields and have been spread by the irrigation equipment. The hills that were burned in the huge Carlton fires are greening up but the grasses are covered in ticks. The tent caterpillars have spread everywhere and are actually threatening the sagebrush. The spiders are everywhere, especially the black widows. Mosquitos from the last drenching rain are thick. And today it’s 100 degrees, which is about 10 degrees hotter than normal. And this feeling of bugs crawling on my skin, only to find that they are! is not acceptable!!
Been there, done that, got the IV antibiotics.
Interestingly, the nymph deer ticks we most commonly contact close to the house are not usually carried there by deer but by small rodents. A fairly effective way to control them is to use tick tubes, available commercially, or you can make your own (just google tick tubes dyi). I bought a length of pvc pipe at the hardware store and cut it into 6″ lengths, then stuffed the tubes with cotton balls soaked in permethrin. The small rodents pull the cotton balls out of the tubes to line their nests. Then any ticks they bring into the nest are killed on contact with the cozy nest lining.
You can also spray your pants, socks, and shoes with permethrin spray. Once dry, it lasts through several washings.
One caution: permethrin, while it’s not supposed to be toxic to most mammals, is deadly poisonous to cats. Just be sure to keep your cats away from it.
“… is deadly poisonous to cats”
A bonus!
This is why I am all about a Star Wars style ecumenopolis.
As a kid in the 60’s who spent the entire summer roaming fields, creek beds and woodlands, the only thing I ever remember parents having a mild paranoia for was Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. And as far as I know, it was not something that ever touched this area. You would hear about two or three cases a year in the state. We would always do a complete tick check after we got home, and if one had already gotten its teeth into you, then you burned it off with a hot match head or coated it in fingernail polish remover to kill it and get it to release. That was the conventional wisdom at the time.
But it’s much different now. We have the county setting traps every year looking for mosquitoes with West Nile. We have actually had many dead birds in the area that tested positive for it. And everyone goes on crazy high alert about mosquitoes when that happens. Lyme disease is common now in this area.
Like you, stink bugs now have a major presence in our area. When I was a kid, we would occasionally see them in the woods and fields, but the only notable thing about it was crushing them so we could all get grossed out about the stench.
Even my Tea Party lovin’, climate science denying, Fox News watching dad admits, “Something is damn sure different than it used to be”. Of course, that’s as far his admission will ever go.
The 5 year old had it too…remember, he’s the one who got the rotating bulls eye rash? CBtE is the one who didn’t get it. 🙂
I just saw this on Twitter(Drudgico link):
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/republican-climate-change-jay-faison-118755.html
SW Ohio got stink bugs for the first time last year, and they’re here again, not as many. What kills us is fleas. They are all over, and even though our cats are strictly indoor, the fleas ride in on the dog and latch onto the cats. It was horrible last year, and we’re already gearing up for battle this year. It’s related to the weather, no doubt about it.
Tick prefer wooded and bushes areas with high grass. These are the areas we should avoid. And most infections occur in May, June, and July.
Florida Pups
Check out Powassan virus for a double-dose of the heebie-jeebies.
I moved west from NJ in the mid-seventies and missed the lyme disease stuff. A friend of mine in Mass. got it once. When I lived in the SF Bay Area I used to hike around Montara Mountain, which has lots of deer and a couple of mountain lions but the worst I experienced were some spider bites, which actually were fortuitious. I went to a doctor and checked it out and he spotted the triple crown of aging: high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes. They’re all under control now.
Insect population booms are not climate change. Remember the mormon crickets out west? There was a huge blight of these crickets which almost destroyed the Mormons after they settled in Utah. The only thing that saved them was gulls which came there somehow.
Insects obey all kinds of climate rules. If what you say is correct (cold weather but lots of snow), this is a common climate event. There must be many years with this.
I would follow the advice to use preventative measures, and also keep the vegetation low around the house.
“Apparently, this is what has happened.”
Also important is the explosion in the population of white tail deer (a result of the decline of hunting), coupled with the “back to nature” trend of construction we have seen for several decades bringing humans in close proximity to the ticks.
While deer are not the favored host for the disease organism (it prefers mice, and in FLA, it prefers a certain type of lizard), the huge population allows the tick population to explode, which then increases the probability of transmission in mice.