One of the creepier, crawlier aspects of spring is well underway—tick season. WAMC tracks the seasonal uptick in the pest's population from early spring to late fall.
The Albany Pine Bush Preserve’s 3,400 acres are home to coyotes, turtles, snakes, birds, endangered butterflies, and, of course, the iconic pitch pine.
“Oh, we got one!” said Alex Soldo.
And many, many ticks.
“So this is an adult female deer tick. And you can see she has that red that I talked to you about and this black part is her scutum. So, just kind of like a shield on her back. The male deer ticks only have that scutum, they don’t have that extra part of red,” said Soldo.
Alex Soldo is a field ecologist and entomologist at the preserve. For the past two years, she’s been keeping tabs on the local tick populations.
Right now, she’s using a tick drag.
“So, it's about a meter-long cloth. It's made out of a corduroy material, which, for whatever reason, actually, really picks them up well, so don't wear corduroy in the woods. And we just drag this along the ground,” said Soldo.
Soldo then counts the number of ticks stuck to the fabric. She says that number can get up to 500, but today there’s just one.
Patches of the preserve are charred and there’s still a smell of burning wood in the air – seasonal prescribed burns are useful for ecosystem management.
But Soldo says ongoing research at the preserve in collaboration with a PhD student at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry suggests those fires may also be a tool to control ticks.
“So, we know, obviously fire directly kills the ticks. They'll die. Just like most other insects would. They desiccate pretty easily. They like the humid undergrowth of plants, so that's one component. But we also know that this frequent fire is opening up the landscape. As you can see, there's not it's not a super dense canopy of trees on this side. It might. It's not like best example of what I'm trying to say, but that opens up the canopy, and sunlight is filtering down, and there's not as much room for the ticks to kind of hide,” said Soldo.
Jim McDonald is Commissioner of the New York State Department of Health.
“We do see a fair amount of Lyme Disease in New York state. We’re doing about almost 20,000 cases a year of Lyme Disease that are reported to us at the Department of Health. But, keep in mind, there are other diseases like anaplasmosis. We see maybe 1,300 cases a year of that. Babesiosis around 600 cases, just to give you an example,” said McDonald.
New research from the Cary Institute found an increase in the number of ticks carrying more than one pathogen. Institute disease ecologist Shannon LaDeau explains.
“So, we’re seeing about 20% of these nymphs infected in a given year with the bacteria that causes Lyme Disease. Co-infections with another pathogen, in this case the protozoan pathogen that causes Babesia microti, is increasing and that has risen over the past decade,” said LaDeau.
Dual infections from a single tick can complicate treatments, and as cases of tick-borne illness persist, McDonald says tick season itself is expanding.
“So, keep in mind, the climate changed. In other words, I don’t talk about climate change, the climate has changed. The season of the year where ticks are out is longer. It gets warmer quicker and it gets a little bit colder slower. So, what it effects for us is you see the tick season is a little bit longer. Days like today, where it’s hot, the ticks are going to be out there. But ticks can be out on much cooler days as well,” said McDonald.
Back in the field, Soldo says that even as ticks pose health risks to humans, it’s neither a good nor feasible idea to exterminate the pest.
“Ticks are also filling a niche. They exist for a reason. Unfortunately, we just kind of get into the middle of their ecological purpose a little bit. And unfortunately, the unintended consequence of that is potentially getting a disease from them. But things are definitely eating them, and they might potentially also help control populations of certain animals,” said Soldo.
She says there’s one easy way to try and keep the ticks away.
“Number one is, if you don't have a reason to go deep into the woods, stay on the trail, they really are coming on you from directly off this leaf litter, and also, like mid-sized vegetation, they're not really falling off of you from trees. They don't really climb that high. And I think that's kind of a myth, that they fall on top of you from trees. That doesn't really happen,” said Soldo.
And if you do happen to find a tick on you:
“Yeah, so I usually take them off with tweezers. First you want to put the tweezers right where the mouth parts are connected to your skin. You don't want to squeeze the body. And then once you have the mouth parts just gently pull up. Definitely do not put any substance on a tick to make it back out. Not only could that potentially cause it to vomit its stomach contents into you in stress, but it could also take a little bit longer than just using tweezers and pulling it out. Would be you really, really want to take the tick out as soon as you find it. You don't want to leave it in for, like, even 30 more minutes,” said Soldo.
