Top 4 Reasons There Are Too Many Ticks

For those of us who love the outdoors, spending time in the woods comes with an understanding that ticks come with the territory.  Deer Ticks (Ixodes scapularis) are little arachnids that are the vector for several diseases including Lyme. 

While there are plenty of articles and advice on avoiding ticks, it is important to take a step back and understand why there are so many in the Lower Hudson Valley in the first place. While ticks are native to the region, their populations have expanded in recent years and increased both disease risk and people’s hesitancy to go outside despite all of the benefits that outdoor time has to people and the environment. 

Here are some top reasons why you may see more ticks now than you did 50 years ago.

1.     Loss of Tick Predators

While we tend to avoid ticks, there are plenty of animals who gobble them up whenever they see them.  It just so happens, that many of these natural tick predators are victims in the suburban land grab that characterizes our area.   

Quail  - Our native bobwhite quail eat ticks as part of their regular diet and are locally extinct due to lack of tall grass habitat and predation from outdoor cats.  Efforts in Suffolk County to release bobwhite quail to control ticks locally have been celebrated and studied with the community rallying behind the effort and kids helping to raise baby quail.

Ducks – Aggressive Canada geese have pushed out many wild ducks from nesting locally.  While ducks eat a variety of foods depending on season and species, this list includes ticks and other invertebrates.  Geese only eat plants and do not control ticks.

Toads –Unlike frogs, which spend their time in water, toads roam dry lands like forest floors and grasslands looking for invertebrates including ticks to eat.  Since toads breathe through their skin, they are highly susceptible to pesticide sprays, including “organic” ones.  Toads are also hit hard by the overall loss of invertebrate populations that come with widespread pesticide use.

2.     Rise in host populations

Ticks have different hosts in different stages of their life.  During their nymph stage, they often attach to small mammals, namely white footed mice.  White footed mice are closely tied with human activity and find comfort in seldom used sheds, forgotten corners of basements, abandoned barns and other remnants of human activity. 

Mice are controlled by a number of predators including owls, cats, and foxes.  Owls in our area need specific habitats which include hollow trees.  Hollow trees are often targets by tree companies for removal which reduce nesting habitat.  In addition, foxes in our area are often outcompeted by non-native coyotes.  Coyotes are omnivores and get whatever food is easiest to acquire while foxes are close to true predators and have significant impacts on mouse populations.

While there is much debate on the role deer have on disease transmission, in Westchester we do have an unsustainable number of deer.  These deer are often the host for mature deer ticks and with higher deer numbers come higher tick numbers.

3.     Climate Change

Ticks are active in temperatures above 39 degrees Fahrenheit.  Below that, ticks are not active.  As we have shorter and less intense winters, more host animals survive each winter, ticks are able to reproduce more quickly, and we end up having more generations of ticks each year and more days each year we need to check for ticks after we go outside.

4.     Habitat fragmentation

Habitat fragmentation occurs when contiguous habitat is broken apart by human activities.  When this happens, some animals and plants increase while many others decrease.  One “winner” in our area is an invasive bush called Japanese barberry.  Barberry does an amazing job of protecting small mammals like mice from predators and scientists have found areas with more barberry have more ticks.

Fragmented habitats also decrease overall biodiversity of an area.  When this happens, the overall checks and balances that an ecosystem has in place are less effective and pests and disease can overwhelm the system. 

So what can we do?

While some things are out of our control on the local level (looking at you, CO2), there are plenty of things we can do on a landscape scale that will encourage balance to our terrestrial ecosystem and potentially lower tick populations.

1.     Support Predators

Owls - Leave hollow trees standing (if safe to do so) so that owls have places to nest.   Remove patches of barberry and replant with native flora. 

Toads - Don’t spray presticides on your lawn. 

Ducks – If you are lucky enough to be in charge of a nesting site, do you best to discourage geese from using it.  If geese do lay eggs there, consider getting a federal egg oiling permit.  Egg oiling, which would prevent the eggs from hatching, is considered a humane way to reduce goose populations and help protect our waters from eutrophication.

2.     Control Hosts

Mice – While I’m not going to stop you from removing mice from your home, they are an important part of our ecosystem.  To help reduce ticks on them, you can put out Tick Tubes.  These tubes contain nesting material that is coated in permethrin, a pesticide that is deadly to ticks but harmless to mice and most predators (except cats).  When a mouse uses the nesting material, any ticks that have attached are killed and the mouse can go on its merry way.  This targeted approach to pesticide use is much more effective, cheaper, and lower impact than commercially available sprays for your lawn which can wash away and affect area waterways.

Deer – In most of our area, there are no effective controls for the deer population – with the sole exceptions being cars and hunters.  Unfortunately, with habitat fragmentation, deer have found back yards to be safe protection from what few predators they do have here.  If you are lucky enough to have a decent chunk of land under your care, consider allowing hunters to help control the herd.  By removing deer from an area, you are also protecting young trees and allowing a forest to regenerate, although that is a discussion for a different time.

3.     Protect Yourself

Preventing yourself and loved ones from being bitten by a tick is the best course of action any time you go outside.  Wearing long pants, tucked into socks, is always a good idea.  Consider also treating outdoor clothing and shoes with permethrin in accordance with manufacturers instructions.  This would kill ticks on contact and is derived from Geraniums but may not feel right to everyone. 

At the very least, do a tick check!  You can find a really simple guide here.