Talk to any Texan who spent time out in the country—and who’s been around for more than a few decades—and they most likely can remember a time when checking for ticks was a required ritual. Kids who’d been playing outside all day were always given a thorough going over before being allowed in the house for dinner. But, in more recent years, the presence of ticks in Texas seemed to decline. It didn’t happen overnight but, ultimately, it felt dramatic. In the 2016 Texas Monthly article, “Are We Too Hard on Fire Ants” the author noted this reminiscence by Texas A&M-trained master gardener Frank Resch: “When I was a kid growing up in Northeast Texas in the ‘50s, every spring you would come back from the woods with thousands of seed ticks. Your mama would have to put you in a bath tub with Stanley Germtrol to get rid of them. You might smell a bit odd when you got out of the tub, but the ticks would go down the drain with the water. But after our beloved fire ants arrived in the ‘70s, I have only seen one tick in the last 30 years…And for sure, you don’t get scared any more when walking across a field and flushing a covey of quail.”
But should we be letting our guards down? Have we grown too tick-complacent?
In November 2018, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that ticks were on the rise. Per the CDC:
“In 2017, state and local health departments reported a record number of cases of tickborne disease to CDC. Cases of Lyme disease, anaplasmosis/ehrlichiosis, spotted fever rickettsiosis (including Rocky Mountain spotted fever), babesiosis, tularemia, and Powassan virus disease all increased—from 48,610 cases in 2016 to 59,349 cases in 2017. These 2017 data capture only a fraction of the number of people with tickborne illnesses. Under-reporting of all tickborne diseases is common, so the number of people actually infected is much higher.”
So, why the <ahem> uptick? According the CDC, the reasons are complicated and a number of factors may contribute to the rise such as suburban development where people, ticks, deer, tick hosts are in close contact. Also, “changing climate patterns can alter the natural environment and longstanding ecological relationships. Since vector-borne diseases (human illnesses caused by parasites Ed.) have strong environmental links, we expect that changes in seasonality and location may occur. We don’t know what those changes will be, but we know that climate is only one of several very important factors that influence the distribution and occurrence of vector-borne diseases.”
That may sound scary, but this bit of information may help put things into perspective for property owners in Texas: According to CDC data, between 2004 and 2016 there were 2,140 tick-borne disease cases in Texas. In Pennsylvania, the leading state for tick-borne disease cases, there were 73,610
But even with that national perspective, local anecdotal reports—the same sort that noted a drop in ticks from a few decades ago—are now noting a rise in finding ticks on pets and people. Could this anecdotal evidence, combined with CDC data, be a harbinger of tick checks to come?
Ticks typical to Texas
Texas is home to four main types od tick: brown dog tick, American dog tick, Lone Star tick, and blacklegged deer tick (aka deer tick). The latter is the one that carries Lyme disease. The University of Rhode Island’s TickEncounter Resource Center has a wealth of information. The following offers a summary for each of the referenced ticks, but for more details and images be sure to click through to the center’s website.
Brown dog tick: “They occur predominately in and around human settlements and infest homes, animal pens, and dog kennels, often causing high levels of infestation both on dogs and in homes. These ticks can spend their entire life cycle indoors… All life stages of this tick can transmit Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever rickettsia (Rickettsia rickettsia) to dogs, and rarely to humans…Adult males and females can be found at all times of the year and can survive for 18 months without feeding. They prefer to feed on dogs but will feed on other mammals, and occasionally humans.”
American dog tick: “Found predominantly in areas with little or no tree cover, such as grassy fields and scrubland, as well as along walkways and trails. They feed on a variety of hosts, ranging in size from mice to deer, and nymphs and adults can transmit diseases such as Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and Tularemia. American dog ticks can survive for up to 2 years at any given stage if no host is found…Adult males and females are active April- early August, and are mostly found questing in tall grass and low lying brush and twigs. They feed on medium-sized wildlife hosts, including raccoons, skunks, opossums and coyotes, as well as domestic dogs, cats and man.”
Lone Star tick: “Found mostly in woodlands with dense undergrowth and around animal resting areas. The larvae do not carry disease, but the nymphal and adult stages can transmit the pathogens causing Monocytic Ehrlichiosis, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and ‘Stari’ borreliosis. Lone Star ticks are notorious pests, and all stages are aggressive human biters. Adults are active April- late August and can be found questing for larger animals, such as dogs, coyotes, deer, cattle and humans on tall grass in shade or at the tips of low lying branches and twigs.”
Blacklegged deer tick: “Found predominately in deciduous forest. Their distribution relies greatly on the distribution of its reproductive host, white-tailed deer. Both nymph and adult stages transmit diseases such as Lyme disease, Babesiosis, and Anaplasmosis…Adult males and females are active October-May, as long as the daytime temperature remains above freezing. Preferring larger hosts, such as deer, adult blacklegged ticks can be found questing about knee-high on the tips of branches of low growing shrubs. Adult females readily attack humans and pets.”
Take tick care
If you live in Texas, avoiding problematic critters—mosquitoes, fire ants, chiggers, and rattlesnakes— is already your milieu. We know what to avoid if possible: grassy, bushy, wooded areas and we know to wear the right clothing and to tuck pants into socks and boots and shirts into pants if we are headed to those types of areas. Also, light colored clothing helps ticks be more easily seen and showering within two hours of coming back indoors has been recommended.
Whether on the rise or if fire ants still have the ticks in check, Texas property owners who enjoy getting out and about on their property should have tick awareness. If you’ve been out and about in tick-friendly areas, not just sitting on the porch sipping sweet tea, be sure to check yourself and your pets.
P.S. An ode to the opossum
Opossums (possums) get a bad wrap (understandable when one has wiped out a chicken coop) but the good wrap about them is that that a single possum can eat as many as 5,000 ticks in a week. From the National Wildlife Federation’s “Opossums: Unsung Heroes in the Fight Against Ticks and Lyme Disease”:
Opossums are extraordinarily good groomers it turns out – we never would have thought that ahead of time – but they kill the vast majority – more than 95% percent of the ticks that try to feed on them. So these opossums are walking around the forest floor, hoovering up ticks right and left, killing over 90% of these things, and so they are really protecting our health. – Rick Ostfeld, Senior Scientist, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies
