JoAnne Skelly
I was out walking this morning in a grassy area south of Little Washoe Lake. My friend and I had been discussing ticks as we walked through the grass. After about five minutes, she looked over at me and said, “What is this on your hat?”
She grabbed it and showed me and darn if it wasn’t a tick. I think I picked it up walking through some willows to see birds. We immediately started looking at our pants, legs, arms and checking each other’s necks.
Fortunately, we didn’t find any more but were determined to do an in-depth examination when we got home. She mentioned that ticks will actually hang out on the ends of grasses, branches, leaves or twigs and then “jump” when a potential host walks by.
There are many different tick species, but only a “few actually bite and transmit bacteria, viruses and parasites (pathogens) that cause disease in people.” (Centers for Disease Control cdc.gov/ticks/about/where-ticks-live.html)
The one we found on me may have been a brown dog tick or a or a Rocky Mountain wood tick, both of which can carry Rocky Mountain spotted fever. The best way to avoid tick-borne diseases is to reduce your exposure to ticks.
They are mostly prevalent from April to September. We walked directly into probably tick habitat, with grasses and brush areas. Long grasses are usually the worst. We were in short grass.
We should have stayed on the trail rather than walking into the willows to see the birds. If we had thought ahead, we could have treated our clothing, backpacks and boots with a product containing 0.5 percent permethrin and sprayed ourselves with a repellant.
I have rarely seen ticks in all my years in Northern Nevada, so I wasn’t expecting them. A lady we met after walking said she found peppermint oil mixed in with lotion spread all over the body deterred ticks.
She said, “ticks don’t like peppermint.” I don’t know if that’s true, but I might try it. When my friend and I both got to our own homes, we checked our clothing and our bodies. The CDC recommends drying hiking clothes on high heat for 10 minutes to kill ticks.
This can be done while the clothes are just coming off as you walk in the door. Showering within two hours of returning may help reduce tick-borne diseases as well as wash off unattached ticks. Places to check on the body for ticks are under the arms, in and around the ears, in the belly button, on the back of knees, in and around the hair, around the waist and between the legs. I hate ticks!
JoAnne Skelly is Associate Professor & Extension Educator Emerita University of Nevada Cooperative Extension. Email skellyj@unr.edu.