Our tiniest critters can cause huge problems

#Middlebury #Ticks

By JANINE SULLIVAN-WILEY

We previously took a look at some of Middlebury’s small and large animals. Now we will take a look at what some consider the most dangerous wildlife in Middlebury – a tiny, eight-legged bloodsucker called the deer tick. Its bite can give you many kinds of diseases, some very serious. And unlike most wildlife, ticks do not try to avoid us.

As the weather warms, ticks become active with a vengeance, hungry and eager to find a source of blood. Some people are repulsed simply by the sight of them crawling about on a person or pet. It can be even more distressing to find them with their heads embedded, feeding. Except in the case of an extraordinary tick load (as might happen on a wild animal or an unprotected cat or dog) they don’t actually take all that much blood. How much blood they take is not the issue, it’s what they can give us through their saliva: bacteria, viruses and parasites. That risk is greatest in late spring and early summer.

These three ticks are commonly found in Connecticut. The black-legged tick, a carrier of Lyme disease, is commonly referred to as a deer tick.

In this part of the country, tick bites can infect humans and animals with several kinds of bacteria, including Lyme disease and anaplasmosis, the Powassan virus, as well as the parasitic infection babesiosis. Several of these can present a complex array of medical complications. Lyme, for example, can result in the commonly recognized fatigue, joint pain and partial facial paralysis (the latter, thankfully, is usually temporary), but also cardiac involvement or neurological presentations such as meningitis. Untreated, these can cause lifelong problems. Fortunately, the tick needs to remain attached for hours to transmit most of these diseases, so tick checks after being in the woods are a must for both people and pets.

Pets can get considerable protection from the many products on the market. For people, keeping covered, spraying the insecticide permethrin on their clothes and equipment and using bug sprays with a high concentration of DEET can help keep ticks off. The state Department of Public Health website, bit.ly/2owqjAj, offers good information on ticks. These strategies are valuable for those enjoying the beautiful woods and trails on Middlebury Land Trust (MLT) property. (Find a list of MLT properties at www.middleburylandtrust.org.)

While treating MLT properties for ticks is not feasible, homeowners can employ several helpful strategies for their properties. When it come to ticks, opossums are invaluable. They love to dine on ticks, so they’re your ally. Professional exterminators can apply products that kill ticks, and some of these products, with proper precautions, can be applied by homeowners. Cedar oil and peppermint oil have proponents among those in favor of an organic approach.

Eliminating or avoiding adding certain plants can help (for example, Japanese barberry thickets can harbor high populations of deer ticks). The CDC has many tips to reduce tick populations in our yards at bit.ly/1opRZT4. All basically revolve around making a deer tick-unfriendly environment, including shorter grass, plenty of sun to keep the ground dry, a wide border of wood chips between woods and lawn/house, and keeping mice (an important vector for Lyme disease) and deer away.

Finally, The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station has produced a detailed tick management handbook it describes as “an integrated guide for homeowners, pest control operators, and public health officials for the prevention of tick-associated disease.” Find it at bit.ly/2qU84Jb.

Good luck managing ticks on your property and protecting yourself, your family and your pets from them. In any situation, the trick is to avoid, detect and remove.