How are the ticks this year where you are?

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I've been out and about in the woods alot and knock on wood.. I haven't seen too many ticks this year. I'd have thought that it would be a bad season due to the warmer weather last winter.... Could it be cause of the drought.. Come to think of it the mosquitos haven't been bad where I am either

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better this year in Lexington and surroundings where we hike. not a one that I saw, and I took one off my daughter before being embedded.
 
After the dry summer, not too many at all. Same with the skeeters. Our resident little brown bat was eating something though, judging by the guano he likes to leave on our porch.
 
Been in the woods more this year than many others and have had zero ticks on me or the dog. And I live in tic city central.
 
Not bad. The drought has really knocked down the population. But I expect them to pick up now that we've had some rain. give it a month...
In the last week I've pull half a dozen off of my cats and one off me. They were all tiny ticks. This is the worst it's been on the farm all year.
 
In the last week I've pull half a dozen off of my cats and one off me. They were all tiny ticks. This is the worst it's been on the farm all year.

Why type of landscape are you in? I'm located in thick woods, but the dogs will be hitting the fields in a couple of weeks.
 
Heavy here (in Millis along the Charles River fields and swamps). Pulled six off my dog tuesday after checking deer spots.
 
Took the dogs afield this afternoon, in search of Timberdoodle. I managed to pick up one deer tick.
 
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This was one of the worst years for me. Even just sitting in the yard, I saw them walking on the fence or ground. Pulled maybe 10 or so off the dogs, one off myself (that thankfully hadn't embedded). Just pulled a very small one off my dog's eyelid today (and she is on restriction from surgery, so is just walked briefly in the yard).
 
I guess Winter Tick season is now in full swing:

Ticks devastate Maine, N.H. moose populations

The parasites attach themselves to a single moose by the tens of thousands, winter ticks whose adult females can expand to the size of a grape and engorge themselves with up to four milliliters of blood.

They are an insidious pest that is killing an average of 70 percent of moose calves across Maine and New Hampshire, and their deadly work is being aided by warming temperatures and shorter winters that allow the ticks to survive longer, scientists believe.


http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...gland-moose/PmpQ3QAHm9C1imAxkzMhDM/story.html
 
Never heard of 'winter' ticks, just know that they just go dormant as temperature drops.

Pulled 5 off my dog after yesterday's morning walk. Even with Frontline, I will pull the bastards off when I see them.


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Winter ticks generally don't attach to people or dogs. They attach to moose in fall then stay on, and active, all through winter.

NH, ME and (this year) Vermont are conducting a major study that involves capturing moose by netting from a helicopter. No tranquilizer involved just a net, hobbles and big balls. On a good day the contract outfit doing the capture work can get 15+ animals fitted with radio collars.

The technique is very similar to what's shown here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUIzS6lYODE
 
Last summer a deer tick gave me Babesiosis. It is a hard to diagnose disease very similar to Malaria and can be fatal if untreated. It is fairly new to the region. There were about a dozen cases per community on the South Coast last summer. Lenny.
 
I have been using permethrin on all my hunting/ hiking clothes this year and I have yet to see a tick on me. I did walk the dog last week with untreated jeans and picked off two ticks. I switched my dogs liquid application to vectra 3D in the spring and he has been tick free since.

Jim
 
Hiking near Groton yesterday and pulled a tiny tick off my pants. Felt like they were crawling all over me for hours after. Ticks are out in January!
 
Winter ticks generally don't attach to people or dogs. They attach to moose in fall then stay on, and active, all through winter.

NH, ME and (this year) Vermont are conducting a major study that involves capturing moose by netting from a helicopter. No tranquilizer involved just a net, hobbles and big balls. On a good day the contract outfit doing the capture work can get 15+ animals fitted with radio collars.

The technique is very similar to what's shown here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUIzS6lYODE

Ah, so a more northern species? I am on Cape Cod and this past year the tick numbers were ridiculous.


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Winter Ticks are taking a toll on the Canadian moose population:

Beset by ticks, threatened by a parasite and vulnerable to warming, Canada’s moose are under threat.


https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2017/02/20/does-this-moose-stand-a-chance.htm


In Thunder Bay area alone, moose populations have plummeted by some 60 per cent in a decade, provincial wildlife management surveys show.

Moose numbers have also declined precipitously in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, southern Quebec and eastern Minnesota, says Dennis Murray, a moose expert at Peterborough’s Trent University.

And while other areas across their vast North American range have seen static or even increased moose populations, there’s a worrisome trend overall, Boan says.

Across Ontario, for example, moose populations have fallen by 20 per cent in the last decade, she says.

The latest provincial estimate pegs the moose population in Ontario at around 92,300 – down from a high of 115,000 early last decade.

In an area of northwestern Minnesota one moose population has likely gone extinct, says Murray. He adds, however, that most experts believe the declines are now a largely localized phenomenon.

“The problem isn’t as severe everywhere,” Boan agrees. “While I don’t think we need to be alarmed necessarily at this point … we need to be very worried and we need to be focusing our energy on it,” she says.

As we ratchet up any focus or energy on the moose, however, untold numbers of the forest giants are suffering horribly as their numbers fall — afflicted by maladies and habitat shifts that are all related to climate.

These include:

Tick infestations that are literally pestering and bleeding the beasts to death.

A neurologically debilitating parasite known as “brainworm” that’s being spread to moose from encroaching white-tailed deer populations.

Warmer weather patters that may be disrupting a metabolism fine-tuned to frigid temperatures.

The opening of new logging roads that allow hunters and wolves better access to the animals, the largest of all deer species.

Boan of Ontario Nature says some of the results can be “hard to watch.”

“It’s horrific, when you see a moose with 80,000 ticks or 60,000 ticks or whatever (and) no hair by the spring,” Boan says.

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I spray with REPEL 25% DEET. Haven't had a tick since I started using it at least 15 years ago.
 
End of muzzle loader season, last week of December, temp in the low 20s. I'm sitting in my stand and I saw a tick crawling around on a laurel leaf. Those little bastards are tough. I grew up in the woods in Northern Mass and when I was a kid we never even heard of ticks around here. Now there are millions of the little fuquers.
 
I legitimatley, thoroughly hate ticks and find great satisfaction in killing them when I have the opportunity. Never a problem growing up in the woods in Western mass either, but now they are everywhere! I know more than a few people that have lyme disease and we even had to treat one of our kids who got bit by a tick that tested positive. Nasty little creatures.
 
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