Here in central europe ticks are a massive problem. Lyme's caused serious year long health issues for a family member. It also almost killed my dog when he caught one of his first ticks ever.
I also do "checks", avoid tall grasses and have the whole system for management of my family's "tick security" (sometimes with their complain in the background). However, studying this problem basically every single summer I once found the alternative explanation as to why tick population today explodes globally in moderate climates.
Collapsed deer predator population[0]. Deer and small rodent populations are unchecked because predators can't thrive in ecologically stressed areas (There's little to no wild forests of enough of the size for wolf in most of Europe). Herbivores had far easier time adapting to the transformed environment compared to their natural predators. They also get less hunted by humans, obviously.
No amount of DEET will solve that. There's also no need to CRISP'r anything or spend a decade of research on poor quality vaccination. This is system's fragility problem.
Then again... ticks were a very common occurrence for the first settlers in North America. There're diary entries mentioning them "in swarms" explicitly. But, what's different today is that you don't need to be even close to a deer trail to get 23 ticks of your dog after the walk.
Here in central europe ticks are a massive problem. Lyme's caused serious year long health issues for a family member. It also almost killed my dog when he caught one of his first ticks ever.
I also do "checks", avoid tall grasses and have the whole system for management of my family's "tick security" (sometimes with their complain in the background). However, studying this problem basically every single summer I once found the alternative explanation as to why tick population today explodes globally in moderate climates.
Collapsed deer predator population[0]. Deer and small rodent populations are unchecked because predators can't thrive in ecologically stressed areas (There's little to no wild forests of enough of the size for wolf in most of Europe). Herbivores had far easier time adapting to the transformed environment compared to their natural predators. They also get less hunted by humans, obviously.
[0] https://hal.science/hal-03015707/document (ctrl+f > "tick")
No amount of DEET will solve that. There's also no need to CRISP'r anything or spend a decade of research on poor quality vaccination. This is system's fragility problem.
Then again... ticks were a very common occurrence for the first settlers in North America. There're diary entries mentioning them "in swarms" explicitly. But, what's different today is that you don't need to be even close to a deer trail to get 23 ticks of your dog after the walk.