When temperatures dip, you may think pest-related threats have ended for the winter. This is true for some pests but not so for ticks. April through October is considered tick season in the northeast United States, but these disease-carrying pests can thrive well into autumn and winter. Ticks are active when temperatures are above 40 degrees Fahrenheit, emerging from mulch beds and from under wood piles. Our Tick Shield granular treatment will kill new ticks as they hatch, providing year-round protection.
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5 Tips for Avoiding Ticks in the Fall
Autumn is prime time to prepare your yard for the winter ahead – to rake up fallen leaves, mulch, plant bulbs, and clear away garden clutter. It’s also an excellent season for spending time in nature: walking through woods ablaze in fall color or sitting around a cozy fire pit. One might think that fall is an idyllic, bug-free season with its cooler temperatures, but don’t let down your guard. There are still ticks out there, waiting for the perfect host to latch on to; don’t let it be you, your family, or your pets.
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How Are Ticks Related to Spiders?
When it comes to bugs, not all creepy-crawly critters are created equally. Some bugs are insects, and some are not. Insects are small, six-legged animals, often with wings. Ticks may be small, and some may have six legs when they’re young, but ticks aren’t insects. They’re arachnids and share more characteristics with spiders than ants, flies, beetles, and other insects.
Are Ticks Related To Spiders?
Ticks are more closely related to spiders than they are to insects. Like spiders, they are a part of the arachnid family, along with mites and scorpions. Both spiders and adult ticks have eight legs and lack antennae and wings. Can ticks spin webs? Unlike their spider cousins, ticks are opportunistic predators, waiting for their prey to wander close enough to latch onto.
What Is The Difference Between A Tick And A Spider?
Both spiders and ticks are arachnids, but ticks aren’t spiders; rather. Ticks are a mite species, and mites are tiny, primarily parasitic pests that often cause itchy bites that can transmit various diseases.
Spiders and ticks are built differently. Both are arthropods– invertebrates with external skeletons and jointed legs, but spiders have segmented bodies while ticks do not, and Spiders have a separate cephalothorax and abdomen. Ticks have small, flat, unsegmented bodies that enable them to attach easily to a host.
These arachnid cousins have very different diets as well. Most spiders consume insects, but some will eat nectar, pollen, seeds, leaves, web silk, or dead arthropods. Some even eat their exoskeleton after shedding it! Larger spider species may consume small lizards, birds, bats, or fish. Humans, pets, and livestock are only part of the spider diet in monster movies, and they do not seek out humans as dietary staples.
On the other hand, ticks feed on the blood of mammals – people, pets, wild animals – and livestock, as well as on birds, reptiles, and amphibians. They are parasites that latch onto their host with their mouthparts, feasting on a blood meal.
Tick Bites vs. Spider Bites
Unlike ticks, spiders rarely transmit infectious diseases, and their bites are usually harmless. The exceptions are black widow and brown recluse spider bites that transmit toxic venom, causing pain, flu-like symptoms, skin lesions, and neurotoxicity.
Ticks, on the other hand, are a vector of multiple diseases. It’s estimated that more than half the ticks on Long Island carry Lyme disease. This bacterial disease is transmitted to humans through the bite of the black-legged tick, causing flu-like symptoms and a distinctive bullseye rash. East End residents are at risk of tick-borne diseases, including anaplasmosis, babesiosis, ehrlichiosis, tularemia, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever, so closely monitor the results of any tick encounters.
Call East End Tick Control® For Peace Of Mind
East End Tick Control® is Eastern Suffolk County’s most-experienced tick control company, providing the East End with effective tick extermination treatments since 1997. Protect your family from disease-carrying ticks year-round by requesting a free estimate now or by calling our Southampton office at (631) 287-9700, our East Hampton office at (631) 324-9700, or our Southold office at (631) 765-9700.
All About the Tick-Borne Encephalitis Vaccine
In 2021, the United States approved the use of a vaccine called TICOVAC or TicoVac for tick-borne encephalitis (TBE). People in Europe have been using this vaccine effectively for more than 20 years.
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The CDC and Its Tick Surveillance and Collection
While you are taking steps to protect yourself, your family, and your pets from ticks, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and other state and local agencies are gathering data to help inform and protect the public. Those agencies ensure facts are accurate to drive public policy decisions regarding these disease-transmitting pests.
What Is Tick Surveillance?
Tick surveillance is the scientific collection of ticks and tick-related environmental samples. Its goal is to identify all tick species in a specific area and test for tick-borne pathogens. Entomologists document, collect, and study the ticks and samples, and then they report the data to health agencies for analysis.
How Is Tick Surveillance Used?
Tick surveillance data monitors the presence and number of ticks in a specific area and follows how this information changes over time. It also documents infection levels in disease-carrying tick species.
Public health agencies use this information to make strategic decisions about tick control programs and resource allocation. Additionally, the data is used to communicate to the public the likelihood of encounters with pathogen-carrying ticks in the area of interest.
Tick surveillance programs do not monitor or report https://www.health.ny.gov/diseases/communicable/lyme/tick-borne disease in human or veterinary patients; that data is gathered separately through state and local health departments. Personal identifiers are then removed, and information is shared with the CDC through the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS).
Why Is Tick Surveillance Important?
It is critical to know where ticks are active to properly assess the risk of tick-borne diseases in humans and animals. Some illnesses, including Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis, babesiosis, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever, can be debilitating or fatal to humans.
How Accurate Is Tick Surveillance?
Like any scientific enterprise, the information resulting from tick surveillance experiences a lag between data collection and publication, and promulgation. Tick populations are constantly shifting and changing, so it is wise for residents of areas where ticks may be present to be vigilant.
Call East End Tick Control for Peace of Mind Protection
Call East End Tick Control® if you see ticks or suspect their presence on your property or home, call East End Tick Control®. We are Eastern Suffolk County’s most-experienced tick control company, providing the Twin Forks and East End with the most effective pest control treatments since 1997. Protect your family from disease-carrying ticks year-round by requesting a free estimate now or by calling our Southampton office at (631) 287-9700, our East Hampton office at (631) 324-9700, or our Southold office at (631) 765-9700.
Melting Snow + Warmer Temperatures = Increased Tick Activity
While spring might not officially be here yet, it’s not too early to start checking for ticks. Conventional wisdom tells us that cold winter and lots of snow help kill off insects, including ticks. So it feels like we should be safe from the little critters as the snow melts and we start to see warmer temperatures, and sadly, that’s not necessarily the case.
Epidemiologists in Minnesota conducted a study a few years ago that showed heavy snowfalls might protect ticks from the frigid cold necessary to kill them. So when the snow melts, deer ticks might be very abundant.
But what do deer ticks in Minnesota have to do with ticks on Long Island? While the climate might not be the same, the principle is that the melting snow and warming temperatures might increase tick activity that people aren’t expecting.
As the snow melts and the temperatures increase, it’s more important than ever to check yourself, your family, and your pets for ticks after you’ve been outside. Tick activity is on the rise, even if it isn’t “tick season” just yet.
Are More Ticks Surviving Through Winter?
While there will be some variation year over year, the short answer is yes. Due to climate change and global warming, more ticks survive through winter leading to earlier tick seasons and more ticks.
A 2008 study discovered that climate change significantly influences the spread and population growth of ticks all over the world. In short, as we start seeing shorter winters, we’re also going to know a lot more ticks. Without frigid temperatures to kill them off, the tick population is just going to continue to look for people and animals to feed on.
Can Ticks Freeze to Death?
Yes, cold weather can help decrease the population of ticks, but it has to be colder than most people like and for a more extended period. The temperature must be below 10 degrees for multiple consecutive days for a significant die-off in ticks.
Worse yet, ticks like it when it’s wet, so melting snow is just about perfect for them. The temperature has to get above freezing for the snowmelt and ticks like humidity, and they prefer humidity at 85 percent or higher, so wet melting snow is good for them.
Are Ticks Harmful?
In addition to that creepy-crawly feeling that ticks bring, they can also be very dangerous to your family’s health and your pet’s health. In 2019, more than 8% of the ticks from Suffolk County submitted for testing at the SUNY Center contained some vector-borne pathogen. With the increasing number of ticks, the risk of infection also grows.
Call East End Tick Control® for Year-Round Tick Prevention
Are you looking for other ways to protect your family from ticks and the diseases they carry? Contact us to discuss mitigation options. East End Tick and Mosquito Control® is Suffolk County’s most-experienced pest control company. For more than 20 years, we have been using the most effective extermination methods to protect yourself and your family. Request a free estimate now or call our Southampton office at (631) 287-9700 , our East Hampton office at (631) 324-9700, or our Southold office at (631) 765-9700.
Are Ticks Still a Concern in Winter?
Autumn and winter are times for fall festivals and other outdoor events. From skiing, ice fishing, and other winter sports, it is a time of many outdoor entertainment options. Along with spending time outdoors comes the risk of exposure to ticks. But how bad is that risk?
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Planning Your Winter Tick Prevention
Now that the official start of winter is only a few short weeks away and the temperatures have been steadily growing cooler, many of us tend to forget that ticks still pose a genuine threat when we go outside. On any day that the temperature is more than 40 degrees, ticks will be active and looking for their next meal. So how do you protect yourself when you don’t know what the temperature is going to be? Fortunately, we have the ideal off-season protection solution – Tick Shield Granular Treatment.
Tick Shield Provides Off-Season Protection
On the temperate days of winter, ticks emerge hungry from breeding grounds in mulch beds, leaf piles, woodpiles, and tall grasses. These newly hatched ticks will latch quickly onto unsuspecting passersby who don’t even know there is a threat. So homeowners who choose the warmer days of winter to do yard work or spend some leisure time outside are exposed to a budding crop of hungry ticks.
Tick Shield uses Talstar XTRA granules that are applied to the areas where ticks tend to emerge. The first treatment is scheduled for December, with subsequent treatments scheduled for later months. Since early winter temperatures tend to fluctuate significantly and recent Long Island winters have been warmer, the need for full-year protection has become apparent.
Ready Your Property to Prevent Off-Season Tick Bites
Aside from scheduling our granular Tick Shield application, there are other ways that you can help protect against tick bites during the wintertime.
- Move woodpiles away, far from your house. Many of us enjoy having a roaring fire in our home’s fireplaces during the winter, but that doesn’t mean that you need to keep woodpiles close to the house. Ticks love to hide in wood, so keep the piles far from home and only bring in what’s required.
- Get rid of leaf piles and other seasonal debris. Another favorite hiding place for ticks is piles of dead leaves. Be sure to get rid of these piles as quickly as possible. Bag leaves and pile them as far from the house as possible. If your kids and pets like to jump around in the leaves, be sure to check them thoroughly for ticks afterward.
- Trim the lawn and bushes. Don’t make it easy for ticks to find an easy meal this winter. Before it gets too cold, make sure your grass is trimmed low and your bushes and hedges are cut back, particularly those which grow close to your house. Ticks hide in tall grasses and wait for unsuspecting victims to walk past.
Call East End Tick Control® for Year-Round Tick Prevention
East End Tick and Mosquito Control® is Eastern Suffolk County’s most-experienced pest control company. Since 1997, we have provided the Twin Forks and East End with the most effective extermination methods. Protect yourself and your family year-round by requesting a free estimate now or call our Southampton office at (631) 287-9700, our East Hampton office at (631) 324-9700, or our Southold office at (631) 765-9700.
Fall Tick Bite Prevention Tips
Many long-time Long Island residents would argue that the fall is the best time of the year on the East End. Farm stands are full of locally grown pumpkins, squash, and apples. Every weekend in October, there are fall festivals and events for all ages. But there is a hidden outdoor predator that lurks amid the pumpkin patches and hayrides. Ticks remain active until the temperatures dip under 40 degrees. Here are some tips to help prevent tick bites while you are out enjoying all that a Long Island autumn has to offer.
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Fall Tick Season Forecast for 2021
Lower New York and Long Island experienced a warm summer, with temperatures higher than 2020 and significant rainfall, with record rains in July alone. The combination means that the tick population will be especially active and thriving this fall and into early winter. Not only will the ticks emerge in increased quantities, but local area scientists have also made the unpleasant discovery that this year’s tick population carries noticeably higher percentages of dangerous diseases than in years past. Long Islanders must act quickly to safeguard themselves from this season’s rapidly emerging tick population.
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