“Improved understanding about reported tickborne illnesses, expanding geographic ranges for ticks, and risk factors will help prevent and control tickborne disease.” New tools for preventing tickborne diseases are “urgently needed,” Hinckley wrote, and it’s important that people take steps to prevent tick bites. “Tickborne diseases increasingly threaten the health of people in the United States,” wrote Alison Hinckley, an epidemiologist and vector-borne disease expert with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in an email to Undark. But the combination of recently discovered disease-causing germs and expanding tick ranges have prompted a push for new research into a familiar pest. These include a Lyme-like bacterial disease called ehrlichiosis, which first appeared in humans the mid-1980s a meat allergy that sounds like a female superhero, alpha-gal syndrome and the emerging Bourbon virus, first identified in humans around 10 years ago when a Bourbon County, Kansas man died after being bitten.ĭiseases like Bourbon virus are, so far, very rare. The rise of the lone star tick is alarming, say public health officials, because it carries novel maladies. “It’s kind of this perfect storm for them to be taking over." Research shows the lone star tick’s expansion has been progressing for a few decades it’s now established from Florida to Maine and as far west as Nebraska. Citizens in New Jersey encountered mostly blacklegged ticks until roughly 10 years ago, when the counts “switched over to being dominated by lone stars,” she added. “It’s kind of this perfect storm for them to be taking over," Egizi said. The forests are recovering from decades of logging, white-tailed deer populations have rebounded, and winters are getting warmer due to climate change. In New Jersey’s Monmouth County, on the southern fringe of New York City, the number of lone star encounters now surpasses those with blacklegged ticks, according to data collected by a county surveillance program that invites residents to submit ticks they pluck from themselves and their pets for identification.Įnvironmental conditions have tilted toward the lone star’s advantage, said Monmouth County tick researcher Andrea Egizi. “And then you gotta watch out.” If a person sits down in a forest where they’re present, the lone stars will likely come crawling. “They detect your breath and become alert,” Occi said. The lone star can sense vibrations and carbon dioxide emitted by a potential host. The species that he was hoping to catch, the lone star tick, doesn’t only quest - it also hunts. “They can’t hop, skip, jump, or fly - they have to have direct contact with the host.” “If anything comes by, they’ll just clamp on,” Occi said as he used the cloth on the end of the pole to mimic an animal shuffling in the underbrush. These species “quest” for their hosts, meaning they perch in leaf litter or on a blade of grass with a pair of legs outstretched waiting for an animal, whether it’s a person, a small mammal, or even a bird or reptile. New Jersey now hosts what Occi calls the “big five” tick species: blacklegged, lone star, dog, Gulf Coast, and the newly arrived Asian longhorned, most of which have been growing in numbers and expanding their range. Every few steps, he stopped to squint, searching for moving black specks that can be as small as a grain of sand. Occi marched along a forest trail, dragging a white muslin cloth attached to a PVC pole on the ground, working it through the leaf litter and along the grassy edges. It’s also useful because, as a microbiologist at Rutgers University’s Center for Vector Biology, he studies ticks and their diseases. While some people might consider this a nightmare outing, it’s Occi’s idea of “fun”- he finds the arachnids fascinating, as proven by the tick tattoos on his forearms. Dressed in blue jeans tucked into gray socks and hiking boots, Jim Occi was prepared to round up some ticks from a New Jersey woodland.
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