Rendered at 17:39:34 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Cloudflare Workers.
kbaker 23 hours ago [-]
We have (had?) some ticks in our backyard and I came across these which I thought was a clever attack angle: tick tubes.
Permethrin-soaked cotton balls in a tube, mice find them and build nests out of the freely available cotton, ticks that the mice have gathered while walking around die when they come back to the nest.
felix-the-cat 23 hours ago [-]
It does work a little, but it's even more effective to just get some chickens. I did find permethrin works great on clothing - when I used to go hunting a lot I'd get ticks on me every time, and the thing is they climb off of your boots in the car and go under the seats or wherever so you don't get bitten until three days later when you're driving back from grocery shopping or whatever. After I started using permethrin and sprayed the floor of my car with it I never saw another tick again.
mrWiz 14 hours ago [-]
Chickens are very effective at removing ticks, but “just” getting some chickens is a little bit more work than tossing tubes outside.
PunchyHamster 4 hours ago [-]
That's like saying "to stop having to weed the garden just get some goats"
greenavocado 22 hours ago [-]
Wow this is extremely insightful. I need to spray my car floor since I live in tick country.
jordanb 3 hours ago [-]
This seems like a good way to encourage ticks to develop a permethrin resistance because the cotton will stay in the rodents nest and gradually be reduced in concentration.
Ive been treating my car, hiking clothing and gear with permethrin and haven't had a tick since doing that. Reapply every time you go to the woods or every two weeks if you're in the woods continuously and keep the concentration up.
If my house was in the woods I would also treat the den/mud room.
If you have a rodent problem then control the rodents: manage habitat, trap/kill them, encourage predators like hawks etc.
tclancy 21 hours ago [-]
Would want to be careful if you have cats. Also appears to not be readily available in the EU?
Then I am going to need some snakes to take care of the mice.
abc123abc123 7 hours ago [-]
You should really get a mongoose to take care of the snakes after that. Highly recommended!
sellmesoap 7 hours ago [-]
No jugement, but I'm seeing an up-tick in pro snake activities on this site!
opwieurposiu 4 days ago [-]
If you are out in the woods and you come upon a roughly circular area of crushed down grass, that is a deer bed. Try and avoid walking through it, deer beds are full of ticks.
The deer trails are a lot harder to avoid.
umpalumpaaa 1 days ago [-]
I avoid grass all together- especially in the woods.
I’m pretty wary of ticks, when you go for hikes just do a body check after. Also, I tend to go with long pants (even in summer, I dislike bugs more than the sweat).
Plus a lightweight windbreaker can help to cover upper body. Plus it limits sun exposure which is also harmful.
Do not do so if a cat will be anywhere near the clothes or compound. It’s super harmful to cats.
sarchertech 23 hours ago [-]
Lethal dermal exposure is somewhere near 100mg/kg.
I probably wouldn’t wear permethrin treated pants and let a cat sit on my lap, but “anywhere near the clothes” is a pretty big exaggeration of the danger.
Linen clothes are awesome. Long trousers and long sleeves and almost as cool as short sleeves and shorts in shade, and cooler in direct sun.
xattt 16 hours ago [-]
Tell me your linen ironing tricks. I have a linen shirt that I dread wearing because of the effort that goes into getting it wrinkle free after every wash.
bregma 7 hours ago [-]
You want the wrinkles to be conspicuous. It lets everyone know you can afford linen.
scarmig 15 hours ago [-]
Just own the wrinkles. Linen isn't meant to look perfectly structured.
goda90 5 hours ago [-]
On my linen button ups, if I don't iron the front gaps in very awkward ways.
goopthink 4 hours ago [-]
Steam, not iron.
littlestymaar 24 hours ago [-]
Linen is the most underappreciated fabric. It's cool in both ways. I don't understand why so few people wear linen in summer.
topgrain2 22 hours ago [-]
Yeah I’m a huge fan, lots of linen and thin, fine cotton that’s not been formaldehyde treated (so, not “non-iron”) on me in hot months. I even have an open-weave linen sweater that’s comfortable into the 90s of degrees F. I’ve got a few high-twist wool pieces that are nice in the heat, but they’re more specialized, less everyday wear sorta of things.
Dedicated summer clothes in trad fabrics are a ton less durable than their winter counterparts, though, for the simple reason that they’re much lighter-constructed. Individual pieces can be had plenty cheap if you bargain-hunt and shop used, but you cycle through more of them than, say, heavy-weight denim or a hefty tweed. Still, mine usually last a few years. Cycling them out seasonally means they don’t wear as fast as some synthetic-blend shirt you wear year-round, so you may not get more wears out of them, but they last a good long while in calendar time.
But man, do they breathe better than just about any of the fancy “tech” fabrics. And feel nicer. Durability, though, is an issue, and you have to get the fit closer to correct than many shoppers may be used to, because most of them won’t have much stretch (no cheating by blending in some nylon or whatever, like a “tech” fabric would)
SoftTalker 23 hours ago [-]
Cost, more complicated in the laundry, prone to wrinkling, and air-conditioning. Linen clothing was more popular before AC was invented.
Y-bar 6 hours ago [-]
How is it really more complicated in the laundry? Most of my linen can do 60C washing cycle (”hot” I think it is called in USA) which is pretty much ”throw it in there with similar colours and forget about it” territory.
The wrinkles are a bit of the charm I think, might be easier to accept if you make it part of the fashion instead of fighting it.
WarmWash 5 hours ago [-]
Just a tip, most modern laundry detergents are formulated to handle washing with cold water to save you from having to use (expensive) hot water in a wash.
I have been washing for years now with tap cold water since learning that and it seems to work fine, even in winter.
macintux 5 hours ago [-]
I joked on Twitter 10-15 years ago that my dream use case for AR would be to easily identify wash temperature for my clothes as I prepare for laundry.
A friend replied with the news that cold would work for just about everything, and I haven’t used warm or hot water since then (maybe once with some really dirty jeans and towels). Such a great hack.
Y-bar 5 hours ago [-]
I mostly wash in 35C (expect underwear), so yes I do that. The high temp was to illustrate that linen is one of the easiest garments to wash because you never have to worry about accidentally throwing it into a batch of very dirty clothes and having it come out changed.
foobarian 16 hours ago [-]
I would like to but they are frustratingly hard to find
Analemma_ 24 hours ago [-]
Some people don't like the scratchy feel of linen compared to cotton, although there are now linen-synthetic blends which ameliorate this almost entirely.
mc32 23 hours ago [-]
I have not come across linens that are scratchy. They can be coarse but not scratchy. Blends can be fine fibers. Coarse wool I do find scratchy, unless it’s cold then the scratchiness goes away. Seems like Belgian linen is good.
goda90 5 hours ago [-]
Ticks want to be on your neck or in your hair more than anything, so long clothes can give them a route that you can't feel them crawling on.
nik282000 22 hours ago [-]
If I'm going off trail I cram my jeans into my boots and shake everything out before getting in the car. Ontario ticks are just a part of the experience now :/
cortesoft 23 hours ago [-]
My body helps me with this goal by being ridiculously allergic to all grasses.
victorbjorklund 4 hours ago [-]
Not sure if it was a deer bed or what but when I was kid I lay down in the grass and when I got up I had over 100 ticks on my shirt.
danubis 7 hours ago [-]
Really the best is to check for ticks and weird bruises with a partner every so often.
Got Lyme disease from a tick years ago and it was very visible -> a spreading red bruise with a white middle (it get bigger and looks like it's not healing)
When spotted some antibiotics did their jobs in two weeks if I remember correctly.
I should check the other diseases' visual clues too.
goda90 5 hours ago [-]
Not every case of Lyme disease has said bruise, and there's other tick borne diseases that ticks pass to you faster post-bite and are harder to treat than early onset Lyme disease is.
The best is to never get bitten at all.
e40 5 hours ago [-]
I’ve know people that took a very long time to beat Lyme, through multiple rounds of antibiotics. Avoidance is very much the best path.
gcanyon 16 hours ago [-]
Seems likely that ticks should go in the same category as mosquitoes -- how long until we use gene-drive tech to completely eradicate them?
ravetcofx 10 hours ago [-]
At what cost to the larger ecosystem. They are the base of a larger food web. Many creatures rely on eating them
sbayg 25 minutes ago [-]
But we have AI now to guide us and it will help ensure we prevent most major ecological miscalculations. The context is different now, given the change in the cost of planning and research into ecological side effects, unlike anything we had in the past.
WarmWash 5 hours ago [-]
They are part of the base of a large food web, not the base of a large food web.
mbac32768 4 hours ago [-]
My child almost died from a tick. Other children do die.
I would gladly kill every tick on Earth and whatever relies on eating them so no human has to lose a kid to this again.
WhompingWindows 4 hours ago [-]
Do you eat meat? Do you use a car and create carbon emissions? That's destroying ecosystems all around the world, and yet here we are doing nothing about it. Ticks aren't even the base of the pyramid, as others have stated, they're one of many choices for those creatures. Can you name a single creature who relies solely on disease-carrying ticks for food?
7 hours ago [-]
boxed 8 hours ago [-]
What are you talking about? That's absolutely not the case for ticks. And for mosquitos it's often doubtful at best, and false when it comes to disease carrying species as there are plenty of other species available.
Sure. And those wasps maybe has other parasitic wasps, and those parasit wasps maybe have flees, who have bacterial diseases, who have viral diseases. All of them parasitic and all who would go extinct when that species goes extinct.
But that's not what the previous poster was talking about. This is not the basis of a food web, that's just a parasitic cul de sac. And there are basically infinite such things in nature.
wolvesechoes 7 hours ago [-]
Many birds feed on ticks. Some beetles and amphibians as well.
boxed 1 hours ago [-]
"Will eat" and is the "base of a food web" are radically different things. Humans "will eat" pistachios, but the eradication of pistachios will do absolutely nothing to the human species.
microgpt 8 hours ago [-]
[dead]
DivingForGold 20 hours ago [-]
Don't know which is worse - - contracting Lyme disease, or Parkinson's disease from Permethrin and other pesticide exposure:
That's easy - lyme disease. If you read the studies you linked, it even shows this very clearly.
The first study is talking about constant occupational exposure. By people not wearing basic PPE, over the course of many many years. It's like taking a shower in permethrin every day for 30 minutes. You can pretty much substitute lots of every day things that get absorbed by skin for "permethrin" here and it would cause some very serious symptoms.
The second study used 34mg/kg of permethrin. That is an insane amount, and one that you could not even likely get without intentional ingestion of concentrated powder form.
If you weight 150lbs, that is 2300mg. So a huge horse sized pill of permethrin, every day, will cause issues.
Shocking.
2300mg a day of most substances will cause issues.
Hell, 2300mg a day of most things will cause serious issues faster than permethrin
2300mg of vitamin b3 would destroy your liver very quickly (weeks/months).
2300mg of vitamin b6 would cause permanent nerve damage very quickly (weeks/months)
etc
The reason we don't classify all pesticides as equally dangerous is because they are not all equally dangerous.
Lumping them all together and painting them with a single brush is as unhelpful here as it is when it is done in any other context.
Permethrin is just a synthetic version of pyrethrin, which is extracted from chrysanthemums.
It is probably one of the least harmful substances you will ever be around.
Lyme disease is easily a much greater threat to people than exposure to permethrin and derivatives while hiking.
The exposure to wood dust and other small particles from disturbing the wood chips is probably a greater threat than the permethrin.
discordance 4 hours ago [-]
Do you mean people should wear PPE when in tick infested areas?
I generally wear pants, full sleeve shirts, long socks etc whenever I go hiking but have still found ticks on me later on. Or do you mean something else by PPE?
DannyBee 59 minutes ago [-]
No, i mean not wearing PPE while spraying pesticides. Most of them wear gloves.
Maybe long sleeve shirt/pants. Respirator/masks are very rare.
Permethrin is not well absorbed through skin anyway (0.5-1%). But easily absorbed by breathing it.
Broken_Hippo 5 hours ago [-]
Your first link talks about occupational use. Most folks aren't going to have that sort of exposure. A lot of things are definitely a hazard when you work with them often, but doesn't carry over into the general population whose exposure is very low.
Your second link speaks of animal studies, using 34mg/kg of body weight in very young animals (rats) between 6 and 21 days old. Animal studies are valuable, but it doesn't mean you carry the same risk of rats. I'm not sure most folks are going to get that much exposure while walking along trails - for me, personally, it would take 1870mg of repeated exposure. I understand that it would take less exposure for children, but an average newborn is around 3kg and the newborns aren't walking along trails - and in most circumstances, neither are their parents. Especially the mother, who just recently gave birth.
It isn't that I'm saying that pesticide exposure is always healthy or anything, but the type of study and the doses are important to give perspective.
beautiful_apple 20 hours ago [-]
What's interesting about this study is that ticks were reduced by 50% with untreated woodchips (no pesticides!)
hammock 16 hours ago [-]
I mean, yeah. Ticks live in grasses not on the ground. If you walk on bare trail and don’t brush on grass or other plants your chance of a tick is much lower
HappySweeney 7 hours ago [-]
They measured density, not the probability of getting one.
mbac32768 4 hours ago [-]
Lyme disease is not the only tick disease.
There's alpha gal (red meat allergy ) and also ascending paralysis. And more.
cactusplant7374 16 hours ago [-]
It's only hazardous when wet. I spray my clothes and then let them dry on the clothesline.
wahnfrieden 12 hours ago [-]
Don't sweat?
lostlogin 8 hours ago [-]
I have a peculiar medical condition which is that I don't sweat... because I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenaline in the Falkland's War.
bregma 7 hours ago [-]
Perhaps a nice relaxing week at my private Caribbean island will help cure you?
cactusplant7374 2 hours ago [-]
Do you have air conditioning?
cactusplant7374 5 hours ago [-]
That doesn't matter as long as it has dried from the initial application.
pluralmonad 19 hours ago [-]
I've spread beneficial nematodes several times before and the following 2-3 years I get notably fewer tick bites. They are a bit of a pain to spread over any significant area.
andrewl 18 hours ago [-]
Can you give us some more detail on the nematodes, or point us to an article?
pluralmonad 38 minutes ago [-]
I picked up the practice from a couple of conference talks I saw years ago. I used to spray a triple threat product sold by Arbco, but found these guys much cheaper so sprayed them this year (results pending).
They are somewhat finicky because they need wet ground but too much rain right after will cause them to runoff instead of soak in.
ethersteeds 3 hours ago [-]
This site [1] appears to have a good overview.
There's several common beneficial nematode species, selection is based on factors such as their affinity for your intended pest, "cruising depth" in soil, and the current soil temperature.
I see several sources specifically recommending a mix of the Steinernema feltiae (Sf) and Heterorhabditis bacteriophora (Hb) beneficial nematode species for tick control applications. Live organisms are shipped with ice packs and typically must be kept refrigerated and applied within a 1 month window.
Application is typically performed with a garden hose and a mixing applicator attachment. Nematodes are sensitive to sunlight, application is typically best performed in the evening to allow them time get underground.
One US vendor in this space I'm familiar with (no affiliation) is Nature's Good Guys. Their product recommendations for tick control are here[2]; they offer applicators as well.
Commenting for future reference in case OP ever responds. Would love to learn more
pluralmonad 38 minutes ago [-]
Responded to sibling comment.
matsemann 22 hours ago [-]
No ticks at the altitude I reside. But with global warming it's slowly creeping up towards the towns further down. Same with Spanish slugs. Will soon be able to thrive here as well.
sojournerc 21 hours ago [-]
We have dog ticks at 8000 feet in Colorado, not sure how much altitude affects them.
estearum 16 hours ago [-]
I think temperature is the relevant variable
sojournerc 4 hours ago [-]
It still gets cold in the winter (negative 15-20 degrees F) where I am, and even though we had a relatively mild winter, ticks are about the same.
There's a tendency today to attribute everything to climate change, but it should be backed by actual data. It's a sort of attribution bias that to me just feels lazy.
There could be a lot of reasons why ticks might spread. I have lived here 10 years, and haven't noticed an increase or decrease in ticks year over year. Just my anecdata.
estearum 4 hours ago [-]
... is this a serious comment?
> explanations should be backed by data, it's lazy otherwise
> I personally haven't noticed an increase
The relationship between temperature, wetness/humidity, and tick range is extremely well-understood. Altitude is not a relevant variable compared to and controlling for temperature and humidity.
We know under what conditions different tick specie thrive versus die, and we know that as the years go on, there are far more areas under "tick-thriving" conditions for far longer periods, at least for the disease-carrying tick specie that we tend to care about.
No one mentioned anything about climate change except you, reflexively and defensively, for some odd reason.
sojournerc 4 hours ago [-]
Chill out. This is what I replied to:
> No ticks at the altitude I reside. But with global warming it's slowly creeping up towards the towns further down.
I wasn't making any causal claims such as this ^
matsemann 3 hours ago [-]
It's a fact, though. You got too hung up on altitude, which I guess is just a proxy for temperature when I compare to neighboring towns. Been mentioned on the news etc that more and more towns get disease bearing ticks here, due to conditions for them getting better with global warming. Not sure why hearing a negative effect from global warming triggered you so?
sojournerc 35 minutes ago [-]
Goodness, who's triggered here?
I merely attempted to point out nuance, that mono-causal explanations are lazy and perhaps ignore other factors that might go into the increase of ticks. Ecosystems change for all kinds of reasons, climate change among them.
I didn't make any claims that temperature or moisture doesn't affect tick populations, but maybe there are some other factors at play. For instance, lack of predators for ruminants and rodents, also perhaps human caused, but unrelated to climate.
This thread proves one again that nuance is lost on the internet.
abc123abc123 6 hours ago [-]
I think the OP was thinking about northern europe. Less ticks far up north.
washbasin 1 days ago [-]
Through a combination of two of my hobbies, I learned that pyrethroids are toxic to aquatic animals. Glad to see that they used "locations [that] were situated away from waterbodies".
Pyrethroids are very powerful tools for insect control (and non-toxic to humans) but any place where you have runoff or ground seepage is going to be a problem.
Aren't those places the ones most likely for ticks to thrive -- areas near bodies of water where animals like deer come to drink?
So hot take: this would only be useful in places where there are not a lot of ticks?
(PS: Permethrin-sprayed clothing is very effective.)
e28eta 1 days ago [-]
They’re also very toxic to cats, which is why dogs & cats have different flea & tick medicines.
zukzuk 23 hours ago [-]
Also bad news if your dog is prone to seizures, as mine was.
MegaDeKay 1 days ago [-]
Deer ticks will go after pretty much anything warm blooded: coyotes, mice, dogs, etc etc etc.
Proximity to water doesn't seem to factor much either. Where I live, ticks this year are horrendous and everywhere.
pfdietz 1 days ago [-]
This reminds me I need to respray my tick pants. Thanks.
Hnrobert42 1 days ago [-]
Calls to mind one of my favorite Simpsons moments.
Wearing appropriate clothing for walking grassy trails is 95% of the solution. Decent walking boots, trousers in socks and a long sleeved shirt goes a very long way.
And no, it does not have to be too warm if you use an appropriate light and wicking fabric.
pcmaffey 21 hours ago [-]
A healthy wolf population is the proper (trophic cascading) solution to the tick epidemic.
gbalduzzi 21 hours ago [-]
Can you expand on this provide me pointer to research for this? I am not an expert in the fields but it seems very interesting
pcmaffey 20 hours ago [-]
The most cited research studied wolves' affect on elk populations in Yellowstone restoring riparian habitats(1).
Wolves' impact on the spread of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer has also been studied(2). “CWD prevalence could be halved within a decade and eliminated within the century if a pack of wolves consistently and selectively removed 15% of deer in a closed population” (Waldner, 2016)
I don't know if wolves' impact on tick populations has been explicitly studied, but you can find research on habitat diversity reducing ticks(3); and it follows that the lack of predators contributes to deer population explosion, which in turn provides an unbounded vector for the tick epidemic.
I would much rather encounter a hungry tick on a recreational trail than a hungry wolf
rescripting 21 hours ago [-]
A hungry tick is much more likely to make your life miserable because you’re significantly more likely to encounter one in ecosystems with both species.
trollbridge 20 hours ago [-]
Make sure the wolves are well fed.
orbital-decay 12 hours ago [-]
You just have to outrun the other hikers.
19 hours ago [-]
jmye 15 hours ago [-]
Given the utter paucity of wolf attacks on humans (vastly, incomprehensibly lower than the rates of Lyme disease), this is a deeply silly thing to worry about.
It’s really clear, sometimes, who hasn’t seen a place that isn’t paved.
Earw0rm 10 hours ago [-]
This feels like a generalisable cognitive bug with our species.
"Kill all the wolves, die as a result from invisible bacteria carried by tiny arthropods - or from Type 2 diabetic heart failure, as getting out for a hike and staying safe is now too much hassle".
skywal_l 9 hours ago [-]
So I don't necessarily disagree with you but people way more rugged than we are and who didn't even knew what a paved road was decided to get rid of wolves a long time ago.
Moreover, what I observed is that urban professional class populations are usually way more in favor of wolves reintroduction than rural working class population.
wqaatwt 3 hours ago [-]
Well because they would risk losing a handful of sheep occasionally (which the government would likely pay for anyway). Also the prevalence of general cultural hatred of natural habitats and ecosystems prevalent amongst some sections of rural populations.
> was decided to get rid of wolves a long time ago.
Outside of islands like Britain that only really happened in the 1800s after wolves stopped being a threat anyway. Also interestingly enough in quite a few places in Western Europe more area was deforested and exploited for agriculture between the medieval period and the 20th century than now. That naturally made cohabiting with wolves and bears a bit problematic (now there are way more forests and protected areas, of course this only really applies to Europe not North America)
choo-t 9 hours ago [-]
> Moreover, what I observed is that urban professional class populations are usually way more in favor of wolves reintroduction than rural working class population.
Perhaps their reasons is an economic one (wolf attacks on livestock) and not an human safety one ?
Y-bar 9 hours ago [-]
It is definitely an economic one. I occasionally help on a sheep farm which has not been attacked. But colleagues on farms in neighbouring counties have had sheep killed by local wolves. Even if they publicly claim they they lost a lot of money and work (which is true) they also say also fear for their safety. However, in private they are not worried, they know the wolves will flee as soon as a human appears.
bhouston 16 hours ago [-]
We need a vaccine for Lyme disease, it would be a lot more effective than paying $3K per kilometre of path per year.
DGAP 16 hours ago [-]
One existed, it was pulled from the market in the early 2000s. There's still a dog one, and there is at least one which is in late stage trials in the US today.
acdha 15 hours ago [-]
Thanks to barratry the one developed in the 90s was pulled from the market on spurious grounds:
It will be good to have, but it will make people more negligent, as there exist lots of bad tick based diseases, not just Lyme.
wolvesechoes 6 hours ago [-]
I am grateful that everything points to the fact I was able to aquire tick resistance. Bites get itchy the moment ticks start to feed, and nymphs die in a matter of minutes while feeding on me.
amelius 8 hours ago [-]
> deltamethrin-treated woodchip
Great, more insecticides :(
Now even in places we least expect them.
tamimio 1 days ago [-]
I got bitten by a mosquito in Ottawa a couple years ago that sent me to the hospital.. I stopped near the river while cycling to see a raccoon for few seconds, was more than enough for that lil sucker to do the job.
winxton 23 hours ago [-]
I got bitten by a tick at a cottage near Ottawa and got a fever then bell's palsy a month later. I didn't even notice I got bit at all at the time. A year later, I went to the hospital for a swollen knee and had surgery done, and ended up being tested positive for lyme disease. The doc says you're too young to have bell's palsy and arthritis. Careful out there!
j_bum 14 hours ago [-]
Thanks for sharing. Were you able to resolve the Lyme?
pfdietz 1 days ago [-]
There are some potentially very nasty diseases spread by ticks and insects. For example, flaviviruses like West Nile, Dengue, and Powassan (which debilitated and ultimately killed the wife of Canadian fantasy author Charles de Lint.)
Not to mention Malaria, which kills over half a million people a year.
intrasight 17 hours ago [-]
And has killed a large fraction of all humans who have ever lived.
OutOfHere 15 hours ago [-]
It has, but it also has saved a lot of people by slowing down invasions.
nephihaha 23 hours ago [-]
Some birds eat ticks including guinea fowl of all things.
mr_toad 18 hours ago [-]
Chickens love them.
analog31 15 hours ago [-]
I've heard 'possums too.
beautiful_apple 1 days ago [-]
> Twenty 50-m trail segments across two sites were randomly assigned to intervention groups: untreated woodchip borders, deltamethrin-treated woodchip borders, and ten assigned to untreated controls.
> Treated woodchips reduced I. scapularis adult and nymph density by 99 % (incidence rate ratio (IRR) = 0.01, 95 % CI: 0.001–0.08) relative to controls, while untreated woodchips achieved a 48 % reduction (IRR = 0.52, 95 % CI: 0.34–0.78).
aaron695 1 days ago [-]
[dead]
bluerooibos 1 days ago [-]
Another worrying proxy for how deeply climate change is bleeding into everyday life: coffee prices, orange juice prices, and now having to engineer huge trail areas with woodchips just so people can avoid being bitten by exploding tick populations.
mantas 1 days ago [-]
Ticks are a problem regardless. And they don’t like too much heat. So climate warming may even reduce their population in some parts. Or, more likely, move them up north. Giving relieve to some and headache to others…
Lyme disease vaccine would help a ton though. I’ve had Lyme 3 times by now. Thankfully encephalitis stab is a thing.
Dumblydorr 24 hours ago [-]
They don’t like heat? That seems incorrect. If true, Then why are they a huge problem in TX and other southerly areas, and are only now spreading north?
SoftTalker 23 hours ago [-]
Different species I belive. Ticks in Texas are differnent from ticks in Ottowa. Most lyme disease in the US is concentrated in the northeast and northern great lakes states and into Canada (though it is spreading over the past few decades).
Texas has the 'Lone star Tick' primarily. But in Michigan for example we've had the Blacklegged tick (which is the main species known to carry Lyme in our state...) for a looong time.
bregma 6 hours ago [-]
The black-legged tick season in Ottawa is March through June and again September through November. Summer (deerfly season) is just too hot for them and they go to ground.
We do all the best camping in January and February. Why, you might ask, when it's usually colder than -20 C? No ticks. Also no mosquitos, blackflies, or deerflies but mostly no ticks.
bitwalker 23 hours ago [-]
They seem to be much less active on hot days compared to cooler days in my experience - though I can't say why. I've definitely observed a difference over the years though.
That said, whether it is hotter or cooler doesn't make much of a difference in terms of how you go about your day - you pretty much have to assume you can encounter them regardless.
andrewl 18 hours ago [-]
I think it's that they need humidity or else they dry out. So hot and humid is fine. Hot and arid is what they have a problem with.
bregma 6 hours ago [-]
Ottawa summers are hot and very humid but the ticks disappear during that season.
bluGill 24 hours ago [-]
They are a huge problem in Minnesota as well.
cmrdporcupine 22 hours ago [-]
It's the length and depth of cold days in the winter that can potentially limit their breeding populations, is my understanding. So the issue is that more northerly areas are getting much more variance in temperature and lacking long deep consistent cold periods.
Up and down cycles in temperature have always been a thing on the North American continent but climate change has made it even more variable. We will still get places where it gets very very cold but not for the consistent chunks of time it takes to set back tick populations significantly.
TLDR I don't think it's the heat or cold per se but the variance.
And yes climate change is absolutely the prime factor in their spread. Into places where they were not ever a threat before.
mgerdts 20 hours ago [-]
I’ve seen a tick in Wisconsin every month of the year over the past five years or so. That is I’ve seen a January tick one year, February tick that same year or another year, etc. Whenever there is a bit of a warm spell they appear. Presumably small upward trends in temperature allows such warm spells to happen more frequently.
Marsymars 21 hours ago [-]
> So the issue is that more northerly areas are getting much more variance in temperature and lacking long deep consistent cold periods.
It impacts the population, but even a couple solid weeks of -20C weather doesn't seem to be enough to eradicate them.
b112 20 hours ago [-]
Ticks have always been around Ottawa, and even in 2011? I recall -40C for well over a week, and obviously cold temps around that week.
Insects lay eggs, and also go dormant under fallen leaves typically. The snow + leaves insulates them, it's how live insects survive the winter.
If you watch robins in the spring, before the ground thaws, you'll see them flipping over leaves. They're eating loads of insects hiding, most still torpid from the cold.
-40C isn't a problem for ticks to live through in this way.
In terms of population, everything follows predator/prey cycles. Nothing is static. It's normal for populations to "explode", eventually predators will grow in numbers too.
I see it with noseeums here, and dragonflies. There are almost no noseeums this year, but loads of dragonflies, which means the dragonfly population will collapse, and soon (couple of years) the noseemums will be relentless. But then the dragonflies will grow in numbers, with plentiful food, and the cycle will repeat.
It's natural.
Global warming may shift habitats, but these ticks are normally here. They're not new.
chairmansteve 16 hours ago [-]
If there was more diversity in predators and prey, the population cycles would have smaller amplitudes. The large swings are often symptoms of a collapsing ecosystem.
cmrdporcupine 17 hours ago [-]
The lowest recorded temperature in Ottawa in the last 40 years was -33.1c in 1996. It hasn't been down to -40 since like 1911.
You might be recalling wind chill temperatures, which would not be relevant here. They're subjective perceived temperatures for hairless apes.
However it does occasionally get to (real) -40C ish in Edmonton area, and they now have populations of blacklegged ticks. But very small populations.
Like I said above, the issue is not the absolute lows or highs, it's durations of cold, which impact their ability to recover and produce large quantities of eggs in the spring. This was literally in an article I was reading about ticks the other day, don't make me hunt for it.
Black legged ticks are not new to Ontario, but they absolutely are to places like central Alberta. And the Lone Star tick is moving north for similar reasons and will be established here in Ontario shortly as well.
bluerooibos 18 hours ago [-]
> Ticks are a problem regardless.
Ticks in my part of the world were never such a large problem. It was rare that you'd get one on your leg in the field behind our house, and now, you literally can't walk through the grass each year without having 10+ on your legs in a matter of minutes. Warmer and wetter weather and fewer hard winters. The presence of Lyme disease has also increased in them.
I have direct experience of this, so downvote all you want, climate change deniers.
mantas 6 hours ago [-]
In my whereabouts ticks were common 70+ years ago too. But nobody seemed to give a damn about them since disease-carrying ticks were not a problem. Talking to my grandma, it was common to have ticks in her youth. But now a massive chunk of them is lyme or encephalitis carrying. And suddenly it did become a problem ~ 20-30 years ago.
kzrdude 23 hours ago [-]
Norway is projected to have growth in ticks and new tick species because of climate change (warmer and more humid climate), so that's one example of it moving north (though ticks seem to always have been in Norway?)
> The effects of vaccination on human behaviour presented yet another important uncertainty. Lyme vaccination, although it provides incomplete protection, may make individuals less likely to limit their exposure to ticks, which might actually increase their risk of Lyme and other tick-borne diseases (e.g. ehrlichiosis, babesiosis and Rocky Mountain spotted fever).
That was a very half-assed attempt. Hopefully a better one is coming soon.
gramie 23 hours ago [-]
There has been a vaccine for dogs and cats for a while now, not sure why it hasn't been released for humans yet. Lyme can be really horrible. Some people we know have a 30-something son who was very active (camping, hiking, rock climbing, etc.) until he was bitten by a tick. Now he's quadriplegic.
nik282000 21 hours ago [-]
Lots of drugs work for dogs and cats because they don't live longer than 25yrs. A human has 3-4x the lifespan during which side effects can be worse than the disease.
kadoban 21 hours ago [-]
Is that true? I don't know of really any medicine that has side effects 25 years down the line. Would we even know? We don't test new meds that long before release.
Isn't it more because meds are cheaper to test on animals and liability is much lower?
nik282000 19 hours ago [-]
When I asked why there is no human equivalent of flea/tick drops my vet said it was because "when you only live to be 20, you don't worry about smoking when you are 10."
b112 20 hours ago [-]
I think the original, mouse brain derived Japanese Enephilitis vaccine, now discontinued, caused symptoms years later.
But prions were the cause, and those are slow acting.
The new, safer vaccine is only recommended if you're going to Japan or surrounding areas, and planning to going outside the city.
SoftTalker 23 hours ago [-]
Typically because it's rare enough that the cost/side-effect risk of the vaccine isn't judged to be worth it.
Humans generally aren't vaccinated for Rabies either, unless you are e.g. a veterinarian who might have a higher chance of exposure to it.
mantas 6 hours ago [-]
Encephalitis is much more rare, but it's much worse than lyme. And there's a stab for it. Meanwhile Lyme is much more common, but much simplier to treat. Which is basically „take antibiotics or 3 to 21 days“ depending on how long it's been since the bite.
ipsento606 4 hours ago [-]
What is an "encephalitis stab"?
mantas 1 hours ago [-]
In my whereabouts tick-born encephalitis is a much bigger issue. But thankfully vaccine for it exists.
SoftTalker 23 hours ago [-]
So there's no natural immunity after having it once? How would a vaccine work then?
mantas 6 hours ago [-]
IIRC there's no immunity. Or at least it's gone after some time.
DANmode 21 hours ago [-]
“Lyme” colloquially covers half a dozen to a dozen different bacterial infections.
bregma 6 hours ago [-]
"Lymne" refers to an infection by the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi, a bacteria closely related to syphillis. There are plenty of other tick-borne diseases (including localized staph infections at bite sites that can lead to necrotizing fasciitis)
Just like with syphillis, there is a cheap and simple cure that is more effective than any known vaccine. If it's caught in time. Prevention is even cheaper.
The standard treatment for Lyme also just happens to be the standard treatment for many of the other tick-borne diseases, so you're still better-off taking a course of doxycycline after a tick byte than getting a vaccination against Lyme.
DANmode 5 hours ago [-]
> Lymne" refers to an infection by the spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi
There are also common coinfections which are grouped under the same name, despite being unique.
zukzuk 23 hours ago [-]
There are many strains. You will develop immunity to one strain, but not the others.
I assume a vaccine would try to be multivalent.
mantas 6 hours ago [-]
Even for the specific strain, it's not long-lived and strong enough.
cmrdporcupine 22 hours ago [-]
I don't understand why we're not vaccinating deer populations, even if we're not vaccinating humans out of safety concerns, etc.
That and deer populations need to be significantly culled (along with rodents, the other part of the Lyme / deer tick population cycle).
In any case, lack of long consistent extended cold spells in the winter to set back their breeding population is the reason they've moving further north. Which is tied directly to climate change.
chairmansteve 16 hours ago [-]
Rodent populations are notoriously hard to control. But it seems that a deer cull would be easy. I am surprisec that they are not done.
giardini 16 hours ago [-]
cmrdporcupine says "I don't understand why we're not vaccinating deer populations, even if we're not vaccinating humans out of safety concerns, etc.
That and deer populations need to be significantly culled (along with rodents, the other part of the Lyme / deer tick population cycle)."
Yep, we should extend the deer hunting seasons so we can vaccinate 'em with lead (I'll leave the rat hunting to others).
bethekidyouwant 22 hours ago [-]
I believe mice are the main host of tick populations
cmrdporcupine 22 hours ago [-]
The black legged tick has a complicated lifecycle which includes both rodents and deer (or other large mammals I believe)
nik282000 21 hours ago [-]
Clearly we should be banning all rodent/deer contact until the tick population is under control.
Permethrin-soaked cotton balls in a tube, mice find them and build nests out of the freely available cotton, ticks that the mice have gathered while walking around die when they come back to the nest.
Ive been treating my car, hiking clothing and gear with permethrin and haven't had a tick since doing that. Reapply every time you go to the woods or every two weeks if you're in the woods continuously and keep the concentration up.
If my house was in the woods I would also treat the den/mud room.
If you have a rodent problem then control the rodents: manage habitat, trap/kill them, encourage predators like hawks etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permethrin - see other animals, I can never get anchor links to copy on mobile.
The deer trails are a lot harder to avoid.
I’m pretty wary of ticks, when you go for hikes just do a body check after. Also, I tend to go with long pants (even in summer, I dislike bugs more than the sweat).
Plus a lightweight windbreaker can help to cover upper body. Plus it limits sun exposure which is also harmful.
I probably wouldn’t wear permethrin treated pants and let a cat sit on my lap, but “anywhere near the clothes” is a pretty big exaggeration of the danger.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10822630/
Dedicated summer clothes in trad fabrics are a ton less durable than their winter counterparts, though, for the simple reason that they’re much lighter-constructed. Individual pieces can be had plenty cheap if you bargain-hunt and shop used, but you cycle through more of them than, say, heavy-weight denim or a hefty tweed. Still, mine usually last a few years. Cycling them out seasonally means they don’t wear as fast as some synthetic-blend shirt you wear year-round, so you may not get more wears out of them, but they last a good long while in calendar time.
But man, do they breathe better than just about any of the fancy “tech” fabrics. And feel nicer. Durability, though, is an issue, and you have to get the fit closer to correct than many shoppers may be used to, because most of them won’t have much stretch (no cheating by blending in some nylon or whatever, like a “tech” fabric would)
The wrinkles are a bit of the charm I think, might be easier to accept if you make it part of the fashion instead of fighting it.
I have been washing for years now with tap cold water since learning that and it seems to work fine, even in winter.
A friend replied with the news that cold would work for just about everything, and I haven’t used warm or hot water since then (maybe once with some really dirty jeans and towels). Such a great hack.
Got Lyme disease from a tick years ago and it was very visible -> a spreading red bruise with a white middle (it get bigger and looks like it's not healing) When spotted some antibiotics did their jobs in two weeks if I remember correctly. I should check the other diseases' visual clues too.
The best is to never get bitten at all.
I would gladly kill every tick on Earth and whatever relies on eating them so no human has to lose a kid to this again.
But that's not what the previous poster was talking about. This is not the basis of a food web, that's just a parasitic cul de sac. And there are basically infinite such things in nature.
https://beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/2009/09/occupatio...
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27756609/
The first study is talking about constant occupational exposure. By people not wearing basic PPE, over the course of many many years. It's like taking a shower in permethrin every day for 30 minutes. You can pretty much substitute lots of every day things that get absorbed by skin for "permethrin" here and it would cause some very serious symptoms.
The second study used 34mg/kg of permethrin. That is an insane amount, and one that you could not even likely get without intentional ingestion of concentrated powder form.
If you weight 150lbs, that is 2300mg. So a huge horse sized pill of permethrin, every day, will cause issues.
Shocking.
2300mg a day of most substances will cause issues.
Hell, 2300mg a day of most things will cause serious issues faster than permethrin
2300mg of vitamin b3 would destroy your liver very quickly (weeks/months).
2300mg of vitamin b6 would cause permanent nerve damage very quickly (weeks/months)
etc
The reason we don't classify all pesticides as equally dangerous is because they are not all equally dangerous.
Lumping them all together and painting them with a single brush is as unhelpful here as it is when it is done in any other context.
Permethrin is just a synthetic version of pyrethrin, which is extracted from chrysanthemums.
It is probably one of the least harmful substances you will ever be around.
Lyme disease is easily a much greater threat to people than exposure to permethrin and derivatives while hiking.
The exposure to wood dust and other small particles from disturbing the wood chips is probably a greater threat than the permethrin.
I generally wear pants, full sleeve shirts, long socks etc whenever I go hiking but have still found ticks on me later on. Or do you mean something else by PPE?
Permethrin is not well absorbed through skin anyway (0.5-1%). But easily absorbed by breathing it.
Your second link speaks of animal studies, using 34mg/kg of body weight in very young animals (rats) between 6 and 21 days old. Animal studies are valuable, but it doesn't mean you carry the same risk of rats. I'm not sure most folks are going to get that much exposure while walking along trails - for me, personally, it would take 1870mg of repeated exposure. I understand that it would take less exposure for children, but an average newborn is around 3kg and the newborns aren't walking along trails - and in most circumstances, neither are their parents. Especially the mother, who just recently gave birth.
It isn't that I'm saying that pesticide exposure is always healthy or anything, but the type of study and the doses are important to give perspective.
There's alpha gal (red meat allergy ) and also ascending paralysis. And more.
https://www.naturesgoodguys.com/products/beneficial-nematode...
They are somewhat finicky because they need wet ground but too much rain right after will cause them to runoff instead of soak in.
There's several common beneficial nematode species, selection is based on factors such as their affinity for your intended pest, "cruising depth" in soil, and the current soil temperature.
I see several sources specifically recommending a mix of the Steinernema feltiae (Sf) and Heterorhabditis bacteriophora (Hb) beneficial nematode species for tick control applications. Live organisms are shipped with ice packs and typically must be kept refrigerated and applied within a 1 month window.
Application is typically performed with a garden hose and a mixing applicator attachment. Nematodes are sensitive to sunlight, application is typically best performed in the evening to allow them time get underground.
One US vendor in this space I'm familiar with (no affiliation) is Nature's Good Guys. Their product recommendations for tick control are here[2]; they offer applicators as well.
[1] https://progardenreview.com/nematodes-for-tick-control/
[2] https://www.naturesgoodguys.com/collections/tick-control
There's a tendency today to attribute everything to climate change, but it should be backed by actual data. It's a sort of attribution bias that to me just feels lazy.
There could be a lot of reasons why ticks might spread. I have lived here 10 years, and haven't noticed an increase or decrease in ticks year over year. Just my anecdata.
> explanations should be backed by data, it's lazy otherwise
> I personally haven't noticed an increase
The relationship between temperature, wetness/humidity, and tick range is extremely well-understood. Altitude is not a relevant variable compared to and controlling for temperature and humidity.
We know under what conditions different tick specie thrive versus die, and we know that as the years go on, there are far more areas under "tick-thriving" conditions for far longer periods, at least for the disease-carrying tick specie that we tend to care about.
No one mentioned anything about climate change except you, reflexively and defensively, for some odd reason.
> No ticks at the altitude I reside. But with global warming it's slowly creeping up towards the towns further down.
I wasn't making any causal claims such as this ^
I merely attempted to point out nuance, that mono-causal explanations are lazy and perhaps ignore other factors that might go into the increase of ticks. Ecosystems change for all kinds of reasons, climate change among them.
I didn't make any claims that temperature or moisture doesn't affect tick populations, but maybe there are some other factors at play. For instance, lack of predators for ruminants and rodents, also perhaps human caused, but unrelated to climate.
This thread proves one again that nuance is lost on the internet.
So hot take: this would only be useful in places where there are not a lot of ticks?
(PS: Permethrin-sprayed clothing is very effective.)
Proximity to water doesn't seem to factor much either. Where I live, ticks this year are horrendous and everywhere.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NGv6RASFsY4&t=26s
And no, it does not have to be too warm if you use an appropriate light and wicking fabric.
Wolves' impact on the spread of chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer has also been studied(2). “CWD prevalence could be halved within a decade and eliminated within the century if a pack of wolves consistently and selectively removed 15% of deer in a closed population” (Waldner, 2016)
I don't know if wolves' impact on tick populations has been explicitly studied, but you can find research on habitat diversity reducing ticks(3); and it follows that the lack of predators contributes to deer population explosion, which in turn provides an unbounded vector for the tick epidemic.
1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235198942...
2. https://wildlifecoexistence.org/blog/wolves-and-chronic-wast...
3. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12445845/
It’s really clear, sometimes, who hasn’t seen a place that isn’t paved.
"Kill all the wolves, die as a result from invisible bacteria carried by tiny arthropods - or from Type 2 diabetic heart failure, as getting out for a hike and staying safe is now too much hassle".
Moreover, what I observed is that urban professional class populations are usually way more in favor of wolves reintroduction than rural working class population.
> was decided to get rid of wolves a long time ago.
Outside of islands like Britain that only really happened in the 1800s after wolves stopped being a threat anyway. Also interestingly enough in quite a few places in Western Europe more area was deforested and exploited for agriculture between the medieval period and the 20th century than now. That naturally made cohabiting with wolves and bears a bit problematic (now there are way more forests and protected areas, of course this only really applies to Europe not North America)
Perhaps their reasons is an economic one (wolf attacks on livestock) and not an human safety one ?
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2870557/
The good news is that there’s a promising new one in the pipeline but Lyme is only one of the diseases which ticks spread:
https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...
Great, more insecticides :(
Now even in places we least expect them.
> Treated woodchips reduced I. scapularis adult and nymph density by 99 % (incidence rate ratio (IRR) = 0.01, 95 % CI: 0.001–0.08) relative to controls, while untreated woodchips achieved a 48 % reduction (IRR = 0.52, 95 % CI: 0.34–0.78).
Lyme disease vaccine would help a ton though. I’ve had Lyme 3 times by now. Thankfully encephalitis stab is a thing.
https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/data-research/facts-stats/lyme-dise...
Texas has the 'Lone star Tick' primarily. But in Michigan for example we've had the Blacklegged tick (which is the main species known to carry Lyme in our state...) for a looong time.
We do all the best camping in January and February. Why, you might ask, when it's usually colder than -20 C? No ticks. Also no mosquitos, blackflies, or deerflies but mostly no ticks.
That said, whether it is hotter or cooler doesn't make much of a difference in terms of how you go about your day - you pretty much have to assume you can encounter them regardless.
Up and down cycles in temperature have always been a thing on the North American continent but climate change has made it even more variable. We will still get places where it gets very very cold but not for the consistent chunks of time it takes to set back tick populations significantly.
TLDR I don't think it's the heat or cold per se but the variance.
And yes climate change is absolutely the prime factor in their spread. Into places where they were not ever a threat before.
It impacts the population, but even a couple solid weeks of -20C weather doesn't seem to be enough to eradicate them.
Insects lay eggs, and also go dormant under fallen leaves typically. The snow + leaves insulates them, it's how live insects survive the winter.
If you watch robins in the spring, before the ground thaws, you'll see them flipping over leaves. They're eating loads of insects hiding, most still torpid from the cold.
-40C isn't a problem for ticks to live through in this way.
In terms of population, everything follows predator/prey cycles. Nothing is static. It's normal for populations to "explode", eventually predators will grow in numbers too.
I see it with noseeums here, and dragonflies. There are almost no noseeums this year, but loads of dragonflies, which means the dragonfly population will collapse, and soon (couple of years) the noseemums will be relentless. But then the dragonflies will grow in numbers, with plentiful food, and the cycle will repeat.
It's natural.
Global warming may shift habitats, but these ticks are normally here. They're not new.
You might be recalling wind chill temperatures, which would not be relevant here. They're subjective perceived temperatures for hairless apes.
However it does occasionally get to (real) -40C ish in Edmonton area, and they now have populations of blacklegged ticks. But very small populations.
Like I said above, the issue is not the absolute lows or highs, it's durations of cold, which impact their ability to recover and produce large quantities of eggs in the spring. This was literally in an article I was reading about ticks the other day, don't make me hunt for it.
Black legged ticks are not new to Ontario, but they absolutely are to places like central Alberta. And the Lone Star tick is moving north for similar reasons and will be established here in Ontario shortly as well.
Ticks in my part of the world were never such a large problem. It was rare that you'd get one on your leg in the field behind our house, and now, you literally can't walk through the grass each year without having 10+ on your legs in a matter of minutes. Warmer and wetter weather and fewer hard winters. The presence of Lyme disease has also increased in them.
I have direct experience of this, so downvote all you want, climate change deniers.
This is key paragraph from the link:
> The effects of vaccination on human behaviour presented yet another important uncertainty. Lyme vaccination, although it provides incomplete protection, may make individuals less likely to limit their exposure to ticks, which might actually increase their risk of Lyme and other tick-borne diseases (e.g. ehrlichiosis, babesiosis and Rocky Mountain spotted fever).
That was a very half-assed attempt. Hopefully a better one is coming soon.
Isn't it more because meds are cheaper to test on animals and liability is much lower?
But prions were the cause, and those are slow acting.
The new, safer vaccine is only recommended if you're going to Japan or surrounding areas, and planning to going outside the city.
Humans generally aren't vaccinated for Rabies either, unless you are e.g. a veterinarian who might have a higher chance of exposure to it.
Just like with syphillis, there is a cheap and simple cure that is more effective than any known vaccine. If it's caught in time. Prevention is even cheaper.
The standard treatment for Lyme also just happens to be the standard treatment for many of the other tick-borne diseases, so you're still better-off taking a course of doxycycline after a tick byte than getting a vaccination against Lyme.
There are also common coinfections which are grouped under the same name, despite being unique.
I assume a vaccine would try to be multivalent.
That and deer populations need to be significantly culled (along with rodents, the other part of the Lyme / deer tick population cycle).
In any case, lack of long consistent extended cold spells in the winter to set back their breeding population is the reason they've moving further north. Which is tied directly to climate change.
That and deer populations need to be significantly culled (along with rodents, the other part of the Lyme / deer tick population cycle)."
Yep, we should extend the deer hunting seasons so we can vaccinate 'em with lead (I'll leave the rat hunting to others).