When you get back to your car, check again. A tick’s first instinct is to climb up, so watch for that behavior. If you do walk through tall grass, check your legs for ticks. This means they can only get on you when you come in contact with whatever they’re on, usually the ground, tall grass, or shrubs. Ticks can’t jump and ticks don’t drop down from trees. This advice works for avoiding poison ivy, venomous snakes, bee stings, and of course, ticks. I’ll share what I tell summer research students, who spend a lot of time working outside: Vigilance is your best friend. How can people minimize exposure to ticks and tickborne disease? I’m comfortable declaring that a good thing and also comfortable saying that we would lose something valuable if we suddenly had to start worrying about Lyme Disease, Ehrlichiosis, and Alpha-gal syndrome every time we went on a hike in the woods. But this is a slippery slope because this is what led to mountain lions and wolves being hunted, trapped, and poisoned to extinction around here.įrom my perspective we do have some valuable natural systems in this part of North Carolina, and we get to have those without having to worry about ticks and TBDs. That is, natural areas will be seen as more valuable by most people if they lack things like ticks. We know that different species have different levels of value from a human perspective, and from that perspective disease vectors such as ticks may have negative value. Even ticks and mosquitoes are biological and evolutionary works of art that have value as pieces of a huge and intricate puzzle.īut that’s not the only valid way to value nature. Some people look at non-human nature and focus on the intrinsic value it holds every species has that kind of value and has a right to exist. But you don’t have to worry about ticks they’re definitely not ebbing and are generally increasing most places. It depends on what you value in nature and biodiversity. Is this good news? Many of us find ticks repulsive, but it’s not good to see any major species mysteriously absent from the ecosystem. This is what we hope to start looking into next, answering the “why” question that follows from our study. It could be that our forest structure is just different enough (not enough oak trees, not the right kind of oak trees, something different about the understory communities) such that we don’t have as many small rodents, which are important hosts for the early life stages of ticks. Despite their reputation, possums are fastidious self-groomers and kill any ticks that get on them. It could be that we have lots of possums which, interestingly, are really good at killing ticks. It could be that we have lots of mesopredators (coyotes, foxes, bobcats) that keep rodent densities low. What are some possible explanations for the small tick population around Charlotte? Driving to the hiking trails is almost certainly more dangerous than going for a hike. So, people who enjoy the outdoors should be wary and mindful, but not fearful. In our part of North Carolina and in other parts of the east there are still places where people can go out and enjoy themselves with very little risk of encountering a tick and even less risk of being exposed to a TBD. To the east, other diseases like Ehrlichiosis are on the rise as well.įortunately, this doesn’t mean they are a problem everywhere. To the north, including in North Carolina along the Virginia border, Lyme Disease is increasing. Ticks, and tickborne diseases (TBDs), are spreading and becoming more common in the eastern United States.
Is there something different about the environment here that makes it less tick-friendly? Identifying that difference may help us address tick overabundance in other regions.Īre the rates of tickborne diseases (TBD) accordingly low too? If we can identify why that’s happening here, it might help us understand why ticks are becoming such a problem elsewhere. So why aren’t they established and abundant here? I think that is a bit of a surprise. Because they ride on deer (and pets and people) ticks can move around pretty well.
We have plenty of deer and other hosts, and we have lots of apparently suitable habitat. This is shaping up to be a bit of a mystery ticks are becoming a pretty big problem (both as a nuisance and a public health threat) in many parts of the east, but for some reason not right around here.įor example, there’s no clear reason why our deer tick numbers are so low we did not find a single adult deer tick in our sampling. Your study shows that the tick population around our part of the North Carolina piedmont is low- which runs counter to predictions.
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