The Dangers of Ticks in the Woods

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Ticks are one mot dangerous woodland creatures due to the numerous diseases they can carry.
Ticks are one mot dangerous woodland creatures due to the numerous diseases they can carry.
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“Backyard Woodland” by Josh VanBrakle helps readers who own forestland take care of their woods and get the most out of their forest property.
“Backyard Woodland” by Josh VanBrakle helps readers who own forestland take care of their woods and get the most out of their forest property.

Backyard Woodland (Countryman Press, 2016) by Josh VanBrakle helps readers to care for and appreciate the woods in their backyard. As the first ever guide of its type for nurturing the land in Americans’ care, this book helps the 10 million Americans that own forestland to give it the attention and care it deserves. In this excerpt, he discusses the dangers of ticks in the woods.

A More Dangerous Animal

When I hike in my home woods in upstate New York, I’m not concerned about bears or any other large creature. No, the animal I worry about is much, much smaller: the deer tick.

Ticks are blood drinkers. They latch onto a host (that’s you), drink your blood for a few days, and then drop off. They’re tiny (and I do mean tiny; they can be as small as a poppy seed), and what makes them so dangerous are the illnesses they carry inside them. About ten of these illnesses impact people, and the most well-known of these is Lyme disease.

Lyme disease comes from a bacterium that lives inside the tick’s gut. When the tick latches on to you, the bacterium travels up from the gut and into your body.

  • Published on Mar 26, 2018
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