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John Cross

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June 14, 2009

No sense getting ticked about ticks

I tend to take a generous view of Nature’s creations, believing that most everything is here for a purpose.

For example, for all of the misery and disease they might spread among mankind, mosquitoes nonetheless are a source of food for a multitude of species from birds to fish to bats.

But try as I may, I cannot find any redeeming value in wood ticks.

Birds do not eat them — the exception, I have been told, being guinea fowl, which supposedly have an affinity for the critters — nor do fish. Or any other wild animal.

They are just there, so far as I can tell, to make our outdoor lives a little less enjoyable.

I know there are some out there for whom the unpleasant discovery of an affixed wood tick is reason for panic.

And amidst reports of increasing cases of Lyme disease, a little prudence and caution certainly is in order.

But otherwise, for anyone who spends anytime outdoors or who happens to own a pet that spends any time outdoors, ticks are just a fact of life.

Awakening in the middle of the night to the light tickle of arachnid foot falls is the price we pay for our outdoor passions.

Likewise, those odd tufts of fur sticking out on a dog’s coat and indicate a blood-swollen tick that has had an extended period of residence are business as usual for bird dog owners.

This past spring, during my stint in the turkey woods, which typically offers ample opportunities to ruminate over the odds that a tick working down my neck or up my pantleg might be a Lyme disease carrier, I discovered nary a single one at hunt’s end.

It probably had something to do with the fact that my hunt was uncharacteristically short; I bagged a bird on the first morning along the edge of a field so I had no need to traipse through any prime tick habitat.

But my tick-free status probably had something to do with the cloud of DEET I enveloped myself as a precaution before leaving the truck.

A friend and his daughter weren’t quite so fortunate on their spring turkey hunt after apparently wandering through a mother lode of ticks. Following one morning hunt and driving home, the young woman’s unhappy discovery of several of the creatures crawling up her legs had them performing a roadside fire drill.

Ticks are the price we pay for our love of the outdoors. We can take the right precautions and still wind up with a few of the unwelcome guests on our person.

After so many years, while I still don’t like them, I don’t find them nearly as unnerving as I once did. Discovering them, removing them, is just something you end up doing if you’re inclined to get off the beaten path.

Ticks, I have decided, are a bit like leeches in that they take some getting used to.

Unappealing creatures, those blood-sucking buggers really

didn’t have much value until someone back in the 1960s discovered that walleyes love ’em.

Nowadays, we gladly spend four or five bucks for a dozen of ’em.

Say, you don’t suppose ...



John Cross is a Free Press staff writer. Contact him at 344-6376 or by e-mail at jcross@mankatofreepress.com.

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John Cross