God knows, there are an awful lot of things about deer hunting that I truly love but dealing with my buck covered with ticks definitely isn’t one of them. I shot a pretty good deer this past fall; my biggest ever in Vermont, 163 pounds. The trouble is that by the time that old ridge-runner had hung for a day on the camp pole; it became evident that he was more than just a little bit “ticky”.

There really isn’t anything strange about ticks on deer but in my career as a homegrown deer hunter, there are definitely more now than there used to be. In fact, by the time I peeled the hide down off that buck, I had already taken over 3 dozen mature deer ticks off of him, most squished between my needle nose pliers.

I think it was back in the early ‘80’s, about the time we started getting hooked on bow hunting, that I first noticed ticks on deer. The consensus among my hunting buddies was that it probably had to do with shooting deer earlier in the year. After-all, prior to bow seasons, nearly all deer were shot during the much colder weather of the November rut. But, all those ticks on my rifle killed deer last November got me thinking there must be more to this story.

I started with a call to Keith Gallant, the warden here in central Vermont and followed up with a conversation with local taxidermist, Rodney Elmer. Both agreed that there were definitely a lot more ticks in the deer herd today than ever before. Many hunters may not even have a frame of reference for this discussion because unless you are around a lot of dead deer and handle their hides you just might not have had the contact to develop a perspective on any change in tick populations. But for a game warden, a taxidermist or a hunter who skins and processes his own deer there is little doubt.

By the time I talked to Don Tobi, forestry entomologist at the University of Vermont, it was already clear that we were witnessing somewhat of a population explosion.

“Last summer while doing field work I was amazed at the number of ticks I was picking up on my pant legs after only a few hours outside.” He went on to verify that there is also a very high incidence, within the tick population, of the bacteria that causes Lyme disease.

It’s interesting to note that deer ticks are pretty common around the country particularly in places with high deer densities like the South and Midwest. The new development is their recent widespread existence in northern New England.

So what do we need to know about ticks and the diseases they carry? I set out to find some answers.

Don Tobi referred me to Jon Turmel, who for the last 33 years has held the post of Vermont’s State Entomologist. In Don’s words, “Jon knows more about ticks and every other kind of bug than anybody you’ll ever meet.” And he was right.

You’ve probably heard that the big deer ticks are not the ones that carry Lyme disease, it’s the smaller wood ticks to watch out for. WRONG.

According to Mr. Turmel and seconded by several other sources, all ticks can carry Lyme disease bacteria as well as a host of other stuff you don’t want to catch.

“Deer ticks are the most likely to carry the bacteria which they pick-up from white-footed mice and chipmunks but trying to distinguish their species by size is impossible.”

A deer tick’s 2 year life cycle has four phases; egg, larval, nymph and adult and in each of these phases except the egg stage, the parasite is capable of giving you Lyme disease. When the adult female’s egg sack is at full term, she will drop off the host and lay her eggs on the ground. The six-legged larvae will often attach to a mouse. Although unaffected by it, mice typically are the source of the Lyme disease bacteria. The nymph stage resembles the adult with 8 legs but is tiny in comparison. It climbs up blades of grass or weeds attaching itself to deer, people or other animals as they walk by. It is at this stage that the confusion about size and species has developed.  The simplest way to keep it straight is to recognize that deer ticks, wood ticks, seed ticks, dog ticks, etc. are all ticks and that having them burrowing their nasty little heads into your skin is never a good thing.

An early symptom of Lyme disease is the development of a rash which initially appears around the site of the tick bite but in some instances does not show up for weeks or months.  The fact that half of infected individuals never get the rash was of little consequence to me. By the time I got done talking to the bug experts I was starting to itch all over.

 Doctor Patsy Kelso of the Vermont Health Department did little to help my pre-paranoia, hypochondriactic mind-set when she told me that the increase of reported cases of Lyme disease paralleled what the entomologists were reporting regarding tick populations. In Vermont there were only 29 confirmed cases of Lyme disease in 2005. By 2007 the number was 138 and by 2008, 330 cases had been reported. For years the disease often went miss diagnosed because aside from a rash, the early symptoms were similar to the flu; fever, fatigue, headache, etc. In its later stages Lyme disease was associated with everything from heart disease to dementia. I scratched the back of my neck and wondered if the health care industry was even on top of this would-be epidemic and where was the media coverage?

With all this talk about ticks, my seasonal dry skin itch, an inconvenience I deal with every winter, was now a bigger than life personal health emergency. I called my doctor.

I’ve known Dr. Ken Borie for years and I trust him. He has the perfect personality for a doctor punctuated by the fact that he actually cares a great deal about the mental and physical

 health of his patients.

“Glenn, listen to me, you don’t have Lyme disease…”

As usual, his soft calming voice dispelled my fear.  He assured me that Lyme disease was on every doctor’s radar but most health care professionals no longer viewed it as a disease with serious long term effects.

“In order to contract the disease the tick usually has to be embedded in your skin for 24-36 hours and if you get Lyme disease it is affectively treated with antibiotics.” He went on to reveal that the whole issue of late term symptoms – called chronic Lyme disease had pretty much been dispelled by modern medical science. As recently as 2007, a review by the New England Journal of Medicine suggested that there was no convincing scientific evidence of long term effects of the disease.

This does not mean there are not other theories but, Dr. Borie confidently spoke of the current thinking on treatment.

“Most doctors today take a pretty aggressive approach to treating tick bites. If someone has definitely been bitten a single 200mg dose of antibiotic is usually all that is needed. For patients that do not know they have been bitten or wait until Lyme symptoms appear, then a therapy of antibiotics over a 3-4 week period may be required. In either case, treatment is effective in curing the problem.”

So there you have it: are there more ticks around? Definitely, although the jury is still out on why. It was mentioned that it could be related to climate change but it could as easily be some other yet to be understood natural cycle. Do you get Lyme disease from infected ticks? You bet, and conservative estimates put 20% or more of deer ticks as carriers. Should you worry about the consequences? Up to you, but like everything else you should be respectful of your natural environment; check yourself for ticks after being in the woods. You are more likely to pick them up in the summer than fall unless you handle dead deer. When hanging your deer, be aware that as the carcass cools the ticks will become more evident as they climb from the skin to the outside of the hair. Several people I spoke with suggested putting a kiddy pool half full of soapy water underneath to catch and suffocate the ticks as they drop off. If you know for sure you have been bitten, call your doctor and get your shot. For me I’m going to stick with the pliers and the satisfaction of pinching the nasty little anthropoids til they pop. And as for intimidating my deer hunting; come-on, you know I’ve got an itch for it.