Asian longhorned tick

Late summer into fall can be a very active time for ticks, and landscapers are particularly at risk for tick borne illnesses. Lately, ticks have garnered headlines for a variety of reasons. In mid-July, ticks made news, rather bizarrely, when the House passed an amendment calling for the Defense Department’s Inspector General to conduct a review into whether the Pentagon experimented with ticks and other blood sucking insects for use as biological weapons between 1950 and 1975. While many believe it’s simply a conspiracy theory run amok, no one can deny the current concern over expanding geographic ranges for ticks, a new tick species, and increasing cases of illness. Emerging Illnesses While everyone’s heard of Lyme and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, new diseases are now entering public awareness, such as Powassan virus. On August 1, a resident of Gardiner, NY was the first person in the state to die from the virus, a rare and often serious disease spread by infected ticks. While the Ulster County Department of Health reported the resident had underlying health conditions, 12 other people have died in the past decade. And the total number of cases are rising from numbers like six to 16 annually in the years around 2010, to 21 to 34 cases per year in the past three years, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). In fact, over the past two decades, seven new tickborne germs that can cause illness have been identified in the U.S., says the CDC, and ...