Ticks present a risk to all of us spending time outdoors in Lexington. Climate change has brought milder winters and expanding tick populations, and with that, we experience more ticks and tick-borne diseases. The Boston Globe reports that Massachusetts recorded 1,800 cases of Lyme disease so far this year. Tick species new to the state are spreading here and bringing new diseases: the Lone Star tick with alpha gal syndrome is now prominent on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, for example.
According to the Town of Lexington, the most prominent tick-borne illnesses facing our community include Lyme disease, babesiosis, and anaplasmosis, primarily spread by blacklegged ticks (also known as deer ticks). While Lexington averages around a dozen confirmed Lyme cases annually, peak tick activity occurs from spring through fall, with ticks present throughout the winter months with no snowfall.
Among the weapons in their arsenal, commercial tick control companies frequently use pesticides that are deadly to a wide variety of insects and spiders. Native plant gardeners work hard to create living ecosystems in their yards; spraying broad-spectrum pesticides is antithetical to our goal of supporting biodiversity.
Fortunately there are alternatives -- effective measures you can take to protect your family and pets without spraying pesticides. One group of measures involves habitat and behavioral modification to minimize tick/people interactions; the second involves defenses when you do come into contact with ticks.
According to the Washington Post, to minimize contact with ticks when heading outdoors, note any grassy areas that blend into wooded areas, as well as the wooded areas themselves. Ticks tend to perch on ankle-level vegetation with their upper legs outstretched, waiting to latch on to an unsuspecting dog or human. In your yard, keep walking areas cut shorter and wide enough to walk through without brushing up against vegetation, while leaving other areas wilder.
Several measures will help keep you safe if you do come into contact with ticks:
· Wear light-colored clothing that makes it easier to see ticks; choose long pants and tuck your socks into them.
· Use clothing treated with permethrin, which kills ticks on contact. You can buy permethrin and treat your clothes yourself or send them to a service that will do it for you. Some retailers like L.L. Bean and REI sell clothing already treated.
· Use EPA-registered insect repellents. Two good ones are DEET (30% is the maximum necessary) and picaridin (20% max). See some recent guidance from the Appalachian Mountain Club.
· If you are using sunscreen, apply sunscreen first and then insect repellent.
· Check yourself, your clothes (inside and out) and your shoes for ticks when coming indoors. You can run your clothes through the dryer to kill any unseen ticks.
For pets, treat them with a tick prevention medicine. There is a Lyme vaccine for dogs. Check your pet for ticks when it comes back indoors.
Some homeowners have used tick tubes – tubes filled with permethrin-laced cotton that mice carry back to their nests for bedding. Mice are a major reservoir of the bacterium that causes Lyme disease, and the permethrin kills larval and nymph ticks on the mice without harming the mice. There is debate about how effective they are, and the tubes are reportedly toxic to cats and may cause bee mortality if bees use an abandoned rodent nest with permethrin-laced bedding.
For useful summaries of the threats and protective options for ticks, three good sites are the Mass. Department of Public Health, the Global Lyme Alliance, and the Barnstable County Department of Health and Environment (which has years of experience dealing with high tick populations). See also Tick Free NH’s publication “Reduce Ticks While Supporting Pollinators In Your Yard.”
With some simple prevention measures, we can protect ourselves from ticks and still enjoy our time outdoors, including in our thriving, living native plant gardens!