Landscape to make ticks feel unwelcome

SALISBURY — If the number of ticks being sent to Bebop Labs is any indication, this year is seeing a surge in the number of blacklegged ticks in New Hampshire. That’s worrying for Kaitlyn Morse, because that means a greater risk of disease for all the people who are spending more time outside as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

The good news is that there are steps you can take to make your outdoor space less welcoming to ticks.

“We definitely got more blacklegged ticks this year than in past years,” Morse said.

Morse founded Bebop Labs to track for the presence of illnesses such as Lyme disease. She asks people to mail her the ticks they find on themselves or their pets, along with a few details about when and where they were collected. Bebop Labs then sends those ticks to be tested, and publishes reports about how many of those ticks were infected with diseases that can be transmitted to humans, and when and where the ticks were found.

What Bebop Labs has learned is that blacklegged ticks are found nearly year-round in New Hampshire, but that they are most active in two periods of each year. The first period, when the ticks are in their nymph phase, peaks in May and lasts through July. The second period, when the ticks are adults, comes in the fall.

“We definitely saw a peak in May,” Morse said of this year’s tick submissions. Based on that data, she projects, “It will be just as bad or worse in October.”

With that information, it’s all the more important that people take precautions. Those include checking your body for ticks each day if you’ve been outdoors, using tick repellant and wearing pants that are tucked into socks.

Bebop Labs also suggests taking certain steps to make your yard less likely to harbor ticks.

Ticks like long grass and organic debris, so keep your lawn mowed and rake leaves into a pile away from human activity.

Cedar and pine have an oil that suffocates ticks, so Morse suggests lining the perimeter of your yard with those types of wood chips to create a barrier.

Go on the offensive by placing what Morse calls “tick tubes” in stone walls and wood piles. A “tick tube” is a paper tube, such as those that hold toilet paper or paper towels, which are stuffed with cotton balls treated with permethrin. The idea is for the cotton to be used by local rodents to line their nests, and the mice and squirrels will then be protected against ticks because of the permethrin, an insecticide, which will keep the tick population from growing.

There are other natural allies in the fight against ticks. Possums eat ticks as though they were candy. Wild turkeys also eat ticks, as do domesticated birds such as chickens and Guinea hens. And if any ferns unfurl their leaves in your yard, let them, Morse said.

“Ferns are one of those ancient plants that evolved to have a natural pesticide as part of their genetics,” Morse said. “They repel pretty much any bugs.”

Morse worked in research and academia before founding Bebop Labs two years ago. The organization was first located in Ashland, and is now in Salisbury. Morse is looking to make another move, which she hopes will expand the organization’s ability to track diseases in New Hampshire. She said she is looking for somewhere to start a laboratory so she can test ticks for diseases instead of having to send them to a third party.

“That would significantly help our turnaround time and the number of ticks we can test each year,” she said. The space wouldn’t need to be too large, she figures that around 500 square feet would be enough. But it would need to have the right kind of mechanical ventilation, as well as a biosafety hood and eyewash station, among other specifications.

If she could open such a lab, though, she said she would also be able to join the effort to track another scourge of our times, the novel coronavirus.

“Surprisingly, to test ticks, we need the same exact equipment to test for COVID,” Morse said about her plans for a lab. “Once we build it, we can go crazy with tracking disease in our community.”