Tick reports spike across Minnesota
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This year's tick season has been a doozy: More Minnesotans have reported encountering the little bloodsuckers amid a spike in tick-related emergency room visits across the Midwest.
Why it matters: Minnesota has among the highest rates in the U.S. of tick-borne illnesses like Lyme disease, which causes serious health problems.
By the numbers: The Minnesota Tick Activity Monitor collected 338 tick reports through August. That's a nearly 50% increase over the same period last year — and October usually has more sightings.
- The project, run by U of M entomologist Ben Cull, compiles these statistics from tick samples sent to labs and crowdsourced observations from an app.
Reality check: The increase could simply reflect more reporting, not more ticks, Cull tells Axios.
Yes, but: The rise coincides with a regionwide increase in the share of ER visits stemming from a tick bite. Across the Midwest, the rate increased 44% this year, according to CDC data.
- Nationwide, August had the highest rate of ER visits for tick bites since the CDC's tracker began in 2017, a major year for ticks.
Driving the trend: A warming climate has expanded the range where ticks and hosts like migratory birds can live, as MPR reported in June.
Zoom in: American dog ticks — more commonly called "wood ticks" — are the most active species in Minnesota, driving the bulk of the year-over-year increase in Tick Activity Monitor reports.
- Wood ticks do carry diseases, though cases are rarer.
Threat level: Blacklegged ticks — aka deer ticks — enter another peak activity period in October. These are the ticks that transmit Lyme disease.
- Between 2019 and 2022, CDC data show Minnesota saw more cases of Lyme disease than all but five other states: New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Wisconsin and Maine.
The big picture: We're living in what the New York Times Magazine recently branded "the tick century" as their populations grow — along with anxieties about the parasites' effects on humans.
- These fears are driven in part by the emerging lone star tick — so named because of the white splotch on its back — whose bite can trigger alpha-gal syndrome, an allergy to red meat.
The good news for Minnesota is that the lone star tick is "not thought to be established here because it cannot survive Minnesota's cold winters," the U's entomology department reports.
To stay safe, wear long sleeves and long pants in areas with dense tick populations, use insect repellent, and check yourself, children and pets for ticks after being outside, experts say.
- Around the yard, clear brush and tall grass where ticks can live.
Go deeper: How to remove a tick.