Next time you take a hike in the woods or let your dog go frolicking off in a field of long grass, make sure to set aside a few minutes after to check yourself and your pets for ticks. That’s the advice of local experts who say that tick season is well underway in northern Michigan for 2023 – and who are predicting a particularly rough season at that. Thanks to a mild winter, a bizarre spring, growing deer populations, and a few other factors, the tick situation in northern Michigan is worsening year after year. Where will that trend lead, and what does it mean for local outdoor recreation? The Leelanau Ticker takes a closer look.

According to Daniel Thorell, health officer for both the Health Department of Northwest Michigan and the Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department, the data on tick trends in Michigan absolutely qualifies as worrisome. In 2019, there were 1,412 ticks reported statewide, compared to 232 reports just a decade earlier. Generally, tick counts have been ticking upward over the past 10-15 years, not just in Michigan, but nationwide.

“There are some fluctuations in the data, but starting around 2010 or 2011, the number of reported ticks [in Michigan] has gone up dramatically,” Thorell says. Some of that increase, he concedes, could be because tick surveillance and tracking have simply gotten better over time. “But we also know that the number of cases of Lyme disease that have been reported has increased as well,” Thorell adds – a correlation that he says reinforces the conclusion that tick populations are proliferating.

Statistically, Thorell says most tick reporting increases have occurred amongst two specific types of the parasitic arachnids : black-legged ticks, commonly referred to as deer ticks; and American dog ticks, also known as wood ticks. Black-legged ticks tend to trigger the loudest alarm bells because they are the type of tick that spreads Lyme disease – though American dog ticks can transmit bacteria that causes disease, too.

“The bottom line is that we know Lyme disease and other tickborne diseases are out there and are being reported more often,” Thorell tells The Leelanau Ticker. “In Leelanau County, there were six cases of tickborne illness reported in 2021. There were 14 cases in 2022. Benzie County went from 10 to 17 cases in the same period. Interestingly, Grand Traverse County was pretty steady [across those years], but then Manistee County, from 2021 to 2022, went from 11 cases to 16. So, it seems like there is definitely an increase happening along the Benzie coastline areas.”

One part of the coastline area that is definitely seeing higher tick numbers is the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. In fact, according to Vince Cavalieri – the park's wildlife biologist – tick season hardly even ended at Sleeping Bear Dunes this winter. Instead, the same warm weather patterns that made short work of local snowfalls and prevented ice formation across the Great Lakes kept ticks a concern in months where they are usually completely dormant.

“This season, we were seeing ticks even in the winter, which is unusual,” Cavalieri says. “We were occasionally having reports of people with ticks on them.”

Perhaps because of that winter activity, Cavalieri says tick issues in the park this spring seem to be surging earlier than usual. “I've personally had my dog out on the trails, in the parts of the Lakeshore where dogs are allowed, and he's picked up a number of ticks already this season,” Cavalieri notes. “We're bracing for a continuation of the trend where we’re seeing more ticks every year.”

How worried should locals be about the tick situation? On the one hand, Thorell acknowledges that, even with rising incidence of tickborne illness, the local statistics “are not huge numbers, considering our population.” On the other hand, he says the trendlines are “concerning” regardless, especially given that tickborne illnesses can often go overlooked for months or even years – meaning that statistical models almost always end up underestimating the problem.

“Lyme disease is one of those things that we believe is significantly underreported, because sometimes the ticks that bite you are so small that you just have no clue,” Thorell explains. “They can bite you, and you may or may not ever know that you were bitten by a tick. There’s the classic bullseye rash that will show up sometimes when when you've been infected with the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, but it doesn't always show up. And while there are blood tests that can be done to determine if you have Lyme disease, sometimes they don't show anything for several weeks after you've been infected.”

Both Thorell and Cavalieri assure that they’re not trying to scare people away from outdoor destinations like Sleeping Bear Dunes. “It’s important for everyone to go enjoy the outdoors, and the great hiking trails and everything we have here in northern Michigan,” Thorell says. “But it is also important for people to be vigilant. Wear insect repellent; perform a tick check when you get out of the woods; when you get home, you can throw your clothes in the dryer for 10 minutes and that will kill any ticks; and if you come home and immediately take a shower, that typically will wash them off, because ticks haven't had a chance to burrow into your skin yet.”

As the person in charge of tick trainings for employees at Sleeping Bear Dunes, Cavalieri is trying to enshrine these and other tick prevention tactics as a universal form of outdoor etiquette in northern Michigan. Other tips, he says, include avoiding common tick habitat, such as areas of “brushy, moist vegetation” or spots “with a lot of leaf litter” from last fall. Within the Lakeshore, Cavalieri notes that most tick issues can be avoided so long as visitors stay in the center of the trail and don’t wander off track.

“But the best way to protect yourself is definitely to do frequent tick checks,” Cavalieri concludes. “Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, and most of the other really bad stuff that ticks can give you, the CDC says it takes at least 36 hours of attachment before you're going to have those diseases transmitted to you. So if you can find the ticks quickly – especially in that first 24-hour window – then you have a lot less chance of getting sick.”