Ticks Off! Controlling Ticks That Transmit Lyme Disease on Your Property - Softcover

Guilfoile, Patrick G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0975385607 ISBN 13: 9780975385609

Publisher: ForSte Press, Inc., 2004

Synopsis

In many parts of the country, spring into fall is the "hot season" for Lyme disease. Upwards of 70% of Lyme disease victims are infected in their own yards, and the number of Lyme disease cases has been climbing in recent years. Fortunately, the arsenal of tick-control measures has also recently expanded, and these tick-thwarting strategies are detailed in the new book "Ticks Off! Controlling Ticks That Transmit Lyme Disease on Your Property".

The tick control measures described in the book focus on two main themes; landscape alterations and host control. These strategies, applied in tandem, are likely to be more effective in substantially reducing tick populations compared to using any single method of tick control.

As Lyme disease has become more common in many parts of the United States, more and more property owners are seriously exploring tick control measures. Ticks Off! is designed as a concise, up-to-date resource for controlling Lyme disease-transmitting ticks. Written by an experienced tick biologist, this book will give you the tools to make your yard inviting for humans, but not for ticks. Heavily referenced so you can do further research yourself on ticks and tick control. Softcover, eighty pages, 13 illustrations.

About this title

About the Author

Patrick Guilfoile, Ph.D., is a Professor of Biology at Bemidji State University, in northern Minnesota. From his first backpacking trip in Wisconsin in the late 1970 s, when he spent several sleepless nights removing ticks from his tent, sleeping bag, and person, he has maintained an interest in ticks. In recent years he has conducted research and published several articles on the biology of blacklegged ticks in scientific journals including The Journal of Vector Ecology, The Journal of Medical Entomology, and Experimental and Applied Acarology.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Tick Talk: An Introduction

This book is for homeowners, pest management professionals, and others interested in controlling ticks that transmit Lyme disease. Advances in understanding tick biology have recently been translated into improved methods for curbing tick populations. In fact, within the past two years, important developments in tick control have been commercialized, and those innovations are discussed in several places in the book.

This book is designed to assist people who live in areas where ticks transmit Lyme disease and other pathogens. In the U.S., blacklegged ticks (sometimes called deer ticks) transmit the bacterium that currently causes more than 20,000 cases of Lyme disease per year in the United States(1). Perhaps only 1/3 to 1/10 of Lyme disease cases are actually reported(2, 3), so the true number of infections is likely to be considerably higher.

Over the past few decades, the range of these ticks has expanded substantially(4, 5). This means significant numbers of people in the U.S., previously protected from tick-borne disease by geography, are unknowingly in the infectious disease cross-hairs. Recent news reports highlight this trend.

This book will help you exercise some control over the daunting expansion of tick-borne disease. I will teach you some specific steps you can take to make your property less hospitable for these parasites. No general guide can provide all the information relevant to your specific area and circumstance. My goal is to provide scientifically supported advice along with recommendations that are reasonable, based on the biology of the tick and the tick s hosts. It should then be possible to apply whatever measures are appropriate for your particular situation.

A brief note on tick names: the ticks now called blacklegged ticks are also frequently referred to as deer ticks. The scientific name for this tick is Ixodes scapularis. Until the early-to-mid-1990 s, ticks from the Northeastern U.S. were frequently referred to as "Ixodes dammini" (or deer ticks) but most tick biologists now consider all these ticks to be the same species, Ixodes scapularis. On the west coast of the U.S, a close relative, the western blacklegged tick, Ixodes pacificus, transmits Lyme disease as well. In the United States, it is unlikely that you will contract Lyme disease from any other tick species. Although several other Ixodes species can transmit Lyme disease, these ticks rarely bite humans. There is also evidence that Lone Star ticks (Amblyomma americanum) may transmit a disease that is similar to Lyme disease in parts of the Southeastern United States. The control of the Lone Star tick and the western blacklegged tick are discussed in Chapter 7.

Notes
For your convenience, all of the web addresses in the book are listed as links on the book s companion website. Also note that references, listed by chapter, are in the Literature Cited section in the back of the book.

Edition details

• Publisher: ForSte Press, Inc.
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0975385607
• ISBN 13: 9780975385609
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 80