Lone Star ticks are the most often seen ticks in the county. (Devan Ridgway)
The Monroe County Health Department launched a new tick app that allows citizens to report tick sightings and see where they have been spotted.
Kody Clark, environmental health specialist at the department, said he started working on the app in February. He saw a need to create the app after seeing increased community interest.
The app shows the location the tick was found and what kind of tick it is. But since the app is so new, Clark said it will take time to get accurate numbers on the number of ticks in the area. As of today, he has received 49 reports of tick sightings. Those numbers are comparable to last year’s.
“It's not really a good way to know when ticks are active,” he said, “but it's still a good tool, I think, for awareness and education, and allows the public to participate in some of our program areas.”
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Clark said he plans to go into the field next month to collect ticks to see what species there are. He expects to see new species, such as the Gulf Coast tick, in Bloomington this summer. The Gulf Coast tick has already been spotted in Lawrence and Greene counties, which border Monroe County. The app helps expand the search for them.
“If the public is seeing this tick, and we're not, for some reason, they can report it, and it requires a picture, that way I can review it and help ID it,” he said.
The most common ticks in the county are Lone Star ticks and American dog ticks. To prepare for tick season, Clark recommends checking for ticks after mowing the grass, walking in the middle of trails to avoid tall grass and creating a tick safe zone in your yard.
“Keep children's playgrounds away from woodline or edge, and kind of make a space for them away from where tick habitat might be,” Clark said.
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Clark said if you find a tick on you, you should remove it as quickly as possible, try to identify it, see what diseases are associated with it and talk to a doctor if you have any symptoms, such as a rash. He does not recommend tick testing.
“Positive results do not necessarily mean that a tick carrying a disease-causing organism has infected you,” he said. “A negative result could mean that you were potentially bitten by a different tick, and that's the one that infected you. So, it could give you a false sense of assurance.”
