Climate Change Means It's Tick Season, Year-Round

Dear Editor,

Lyme disease. If you haven't had it personally, you likely know someone who does. The upper Midwest is a notorious hotspot for those creepy-crawlies that latch on in the great outdoors, grab a quick blood snack, and leave you a disease rather than a thank-you note. While endemic here already, a changing climate is likely to make tick-borne diseases more common, and more widespread.

Tick-borne diseases are usually kept in check by the climate specific to a location - for example, colder weather makes ticks less active, less likely to attach themselves, less likely to transmit infection. In a rapidly warming world, the range of ticks may expand, as they take advantage of warmer temperatures to stay active for longer and later in the year and spread further.

A new study from the University of Southern Mississippi also highlights this concern, as well as possible transmission on far-ranging birds to spread the ticks across a much wider range; "If conditions become more hospitable for tropical tick species to establish themselves in areas where they would previously have been unsuccessful, then there is a chance they could bring new diseases with them," according to the lead author on the study, Dr. Shahid Karim.

Climate change: bad for crops, water supply, human health. The alarm bells are ringing; will we listen?

Sincerely,

Nathan Dombeck

Janesville, WI