Date: Wed, 20 May 98 18:31 EDT From: dave evans <T442119@RUTADMIN.RUTGERS.EDU> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg1725$foo@default> Subject: Re: Ticks...
> We live at the edge of the Pine Barrens... okay, it's more like five
> miles away... but our housing dev. surrounds about 100-200 yards of
> scrubby woods. My backyard borders on these woods. My wife, while
> gardening in the backyard today, acquired a tick! If it's this bad in
> suburbia NJ, just imagine what the Pine Barren bogs must be like! I
> advise (once again) to use EXTREME caution when entering NJ bogs. We've
> decided to cancel all trips this year to the bogs- avoiding the bogs is
> the best way to avoid Lyme disease.
Hello Paul,
While I certainly advocate both your call to watchout for ticks
and your support of Longwood (It is one of the best displays I have
ever seen of plants!), I feel cancelling trips to bogs to be rather
ineffective. After all, the problem this year affects the *whole
northeast* of the United States, including the area around Long Wood
Gardens. Any pet that goes out is also a vector.
What everyone should do is be very cautious about ticks and other
local parasites, as they are in great abundance this year. Rather, no
matter where you go in the woods, or parks, or your backyard (if ticks
may be present) you should wear light colors so that dark shapes stand
out. Look over yourself and friends often in any questionable locale!!!
Ticks can attach to almost any area of skin, I got a baby tick two
years ago while mowing the backyard on my ankle, but I wasn't wearing
socks. There are no bogs for at least ten miles, but plenty of squirr-
els and birds that can harbor ticks. (But can these animals harbor
Lyme's? I wonder.)
If you wear your pants tucked into your shoes or boots, you shirt
tucked into your pants, then ticks can only shimmy up until reaching
your neck, giving you and your partner(s) time to notice their presence.
When you do notice one or more, everyone should be throughly searched,
before any other ticks have time to hide and bite. It is perfectly
safe to handle ticks, BTW, but I prefer to kill them instead.
I'm not sure if baby ticks are able to transmit Lyme's Disease (any
experts out there?), since you would be their first host... And those
are the ones most easily overlooked, but I'm not sure if they prove to
be much danger. They look like bits of dirt about the size of a period,
or smaller. If they are larger, then they have already had at least
one host. If you are bitten, save the tick. Symptoms of disease may
not show themselves for weeks, and I think it is much easier for doctors
to test the animal than you, if you start feeling ill.
Dave Evans
BTW, by the summer, ticks are in abundance no matter what happened during
winter and I always follow these precautions.
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