PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER (WWW)
Philadelphia, PA 12/13/2004
Author: Gary Taylor
Philadelphia (PA) Inquirer via World Wide Web 12/13/2004
Source Website: www.philly.com
BY GARY TAYLOR
The Orlando Sentinel
Tick Problem Emerges In Wake Of Hurricanes
ORLANDO, Fla. - (KRT) - Long after the debris is gone, some Florida
residents may still be feeling the effects of the 2004 hurricane season. In fact, for
pet owners, the worse
may be yet to come.
Lurking in the cracks and crevices of homes across the region
may be ticks - thousands of them, in various stages of development - perhaps the result
of just one tick that
hitched a ride inside on the family dog.
Florida pest-control companies and veterinarians say there has
been a notable increase in complaints about tick infestations since the three hurricanes
ripped through central
Florida.
To be sure, common pests from ants to roaches have invaded homes
by the thousands in the wake of the hurricanes. But most people are used to those bugs.
The same cannot
be said for ticks.
And while cooler weather may help keep some pests in check, it
is not much of a deterrent to ticks.
The ticks have been in the woods and brush all along, but the
hurricanes stirred them up, said Jerry Butler, an entomologist and retired University
of Florida professor
who has studied the parasites since 1962.
The recent outbreak "is probably related to habitat disturbance," Butler
said. "The ticks were redistributed. It also may be that the deer and raccoons
and possums are taking different paths."
Ticks are worse this year than at any time in Susan Wayne's more
than 16 years of practicing veterinary medicine.
"We've seen a lot of dogs that have tick infestation," said
Wayne, of Murphy Veterinary Clinic in Sanford, Florida.
The leading product for fighting ticks is FRONTLINE, because it
kills them, she said. "We're
selling a bunch of it, easily three times as much as last year."
Nick Silva, a canine instructor who lives in DeBary, Florida,
said he uses FRONTLINE but still has to check his dogs closely after they go outside
for
a walk. "This year
has been the worst for me," said Silva, who has lived in DeBary for three years.
While residents may encounter as many as six different types of
ticks, the brown dog tick is the most common, Butler said.
A tick has four stages in its life cycle, and it must find a host
from which to feed on blood during the final three stages. Brown dog ticks rarely bite
humans, though
they will on occasion, Butler said, especially if they cannot find a dog or other furry
mammal. Cats are seldom affected.
"If they can't get a blood meal with animals, they will get
on humans," said Phil
Nichols, an entomologist with Middleton Pest Control. And that is usually when people
start contacting pest-control companies. Tick complaints, he said, have increased during
the past few months, though he couldn't say by how much.
When it comes to the brown dog tick, the good news is the female
lays fewer eggs than all other hard ticks, Butler said. The bad news is she may lay
as many as 8,000 eggs,
though ticks typically lay a mass of 1,000 to 3,000 eggs. The eggs hatch into larva,
often called seed ticks.
"Most ticks die as larva, failing to find a host," Butler
said. "Otherwise,
we'd be neck-deep in ticks."
The eggs are laid around baseboards, window and door casings,
curtains, furniture and the edge of rugs. Once the eggs hatch, the larva can live for
months until they find
a blood host.
The six-legged seed ticks are so small they often go unnoticed,
Butler said.
"They are a little bigger than a pinhead," he said.
If they find a blood host, they remain attached for three to six days before dropping
to the floor. The seed ticks
then hide for six to 23 days before molting into eight-legged, reddish-brown nymphs.
Like seed ticks, they can survive for long period without a blood meal.
After the nymphs take a blood meal, they drop off and molt into
adults in 12 to 29 days.
Adult ticks have been known to survive as long as 200 days without
a blood meal, according to University of Florida research. But they require several
days of feeding before
they can reproduce. Males die soon after mating; females drop off to lay eggs and start
the cycle over again.
Humans can be bitten by a tick and never know it, Butler said.
The creatures inject a Novocain-like chemical that deadens the area of their bite,
he said. They are good
at crawling on a host - be it a dog or a human - without being detected, Butler said.
The brown dog tick can spread disease among dogs, but is not known
to transmit disease to humans.
Ticks capable of transmitting diseases are much rarer in central
Florida, and the Orange County, Florida, Health Department reports no increase in
tick-related diseases.
Lyme disease, the most common arthropod-borne illness in the United
States, is a multisystem inflammatory disease that is easily treated with antibiotics
if detected early.
"We (normally) get two or three cases of Lyme disease a year," said
Bill Toth of the Orange County Health Department. The agency also usually sees one
or two cases
of human erlichiosis, a bacterial disease transmitted by ticks.
If a house is infested with ticks, homeowners probably are not
going to solve the problem without help.
"It pretty much takes a professional," Butler said.
Both the dogs and the household need to be treated, he said.
The family dog may be the root of the tick problem, Butler said,
but the last thing homeowners should do is to get rid of the dog, he said.
As long as the dog is around, the ticks will seek out the pet
and not humans.
"They're the vacuum," he said.
(c) 2004, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.). |
