By: Jeff Dickey-Chasins
You probably love being outside, or you wouldn’t know about the Middlesex Land Trust! But you know who enjoys the great outdoors even more than you do? Ticks.
Ticks – the pros and cons
Most folks are not tick fans. Yet ticks are a strong and important link in the food chain – they take nourishment from larger host animals high in the food chain and transfer that down to lesser organisms. For example, they are a favorite food source for chickens, turkeys and other ground birds like grouse.
But ticks can be bad news for humans. They carry some pretty unpleasant diseases. In fact, roughly 54% of adult blacklegged ticks (also known as the deer tick), the most prevalent tick in Connecticut, are infected with Lyme disease – which can cause arthritis, malaise, fatigue, and neurologic or cardiac problems. The second most common tick-transmitted disease is Babesiosis, a malaria-like illness that infects about 16% of ticks in Connecticut. Babesiosis can cause flu-like symptoms, or in severe cases, organ failure and blood clots.
How to deal with ticks
That’s the bad news. The good news is that there is a lot you can do to avoid ticks and/or prevent infection:
- Stay on established trails and avoid bushy or wooded areas.
- Conduct routine tick checks after outdoor activities.
- Wear long sleeves, pants, and light-colored, tightly woven clothing.
- Tuck pant legs into socks when hiking in tick habitat.
- Wear permethrin-treated clothing to repel and kill ticks.
In addition to the above, it’s a good idea to have a good pair of tweezers and some topical antibiotic or alcohol handy if you need to remove a tick that you find during your tick check. Use the tweezers to grasp the tick as close to your skin’s surface as possible, and then pull straight upward with even, steady pressure. Be sure to save the tick so it can be tested. The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station offers tick testing for Connecticut residents. For more information, see https://portal.ct.gov/caes/tick-office/tick-office/information-on-submitting-ticks.
Consider applying tick repellent to your exposed skin and clothing. The primary active ingredient in most insect/tick repellents today is DEET (N, N-dietheylm-toluamide). For blacklegged ticks, DEET concentrations around 20-30% applied to clothes are about 86-92% effective in preventing tick bites. Other repellents at appropriate concentrations for use against ticks include picaridin (20%), oil of lemon eucalyptus (30%), and IR3535 (20%).
Don’t forget your pets
Do you hike with your dogs? Then do a tick check for them, too! Ask your vet for advice about preventing ticks from latching on. Remember that dogs can easily bring ticks inside your house or apartment.
Remember, ticks are not superhuman – they don’t jump, fly, or drop from trees. The majority will reach you via leaf litter and grass. They typically arrive on the lower legs and then crawl up the body until they find a place to attach and feed. Nymphal blacklegged ticks are very small (pinhead size), difficult to notice, and are active during the late spring and summer months. Roughly 70-80% of human Lyme disease cases occur in the summer months.
More ticks on the horizon
In addition to the blacklegged tick, you may encounter the following ticks in Connecticut: the brown dog tick, the lone star tick, and the Asian longhorned tick. The latter two are invasives that now make Connecticut their home. You can expect that other invasive ticks will be moving in as the winters get warmer. So it’s better to be prepared to see more ticks on your journeys outside.
Don’t let ticks spoil your outdoor adventures. Remember – prevent ticks from latching on by wearing the right clothing, spraying tick repellant in the right places, and most importantly, conduct a tick check after any outdoor activity. If you do find a tick, don’t panic – remove it, save it for testing, and be sure to check again. If you find one tick, you may find two!