A New Hobby? Wyoming Scientists Looking For People To Go Out And Collect Ticks

For those who can stomach the task, Wyoming scientists need volunteers to go out and pick up ticks.

“We need tick wranglers, please,” entomologist Mikenna Smith told Cowboy State Daily.

She works for the Teton County Weed and Pest District, which is spearheading a statewide effort to survey and study Wyoming’s tick population. Researchers want to determine how thick the little bloodsuckers are here, what species are present and which diseases they carry.

In some areas, tick populations are exploding. In March, a Laramie entomologist collected more than 50 of the little pests in minutes in rural Laramie County.

Current information about Wyoming’s ticks is “spotty,” and scientists want to fill in the gaps. They’re reaching out to the public in hopes that folks all across the Cowboy State will be willing take sections of white cloth into the brush and grasses, snag ticks and send them in for laboratory analysis.

“The more ticks we can get, the bigger the sample size and the more we can learn,” Smith said.

Hunter Deerman, the Laramie entomologist, also has said more research is needed.

“Historically, Wyoming has had little to no surveillance of ticks,” he told Cowboy State Daily in March. “There’s been a huge hole of data when it comes to ticks in Wyoming.”

‘Ticks Per Minute’

Teton County Weed and Pest has brought several partners onboard, including the University of Wyoming’s Biodiversity Institute.

But to really get things ticking, it will take volunteers with boots on the ground, Biodiversity Institute Associate Director Brett Addis said.

She realizes it’s not an easy pitch to ask people to go out and intentionally find the creepy-looking critters.

“We need more folks to collect ticks and it’s kind of hard to do that, because ticks just freak people out,” she said.

To find out more and volunteer, visit the Teton County Weed and Pest website.

For those willing to try, the task is straightforward. They’ll just need a white cloth, collection vials and a stopwatch, Addis said.

“Whenever you’re going out for a hike, drag a white cloth across the brush and pick the ticks off it,” she said, adding a stopwatch can be used to measure how many “ticks per minute” are collected.

A tick wrangler can drag for a spell, pause the stopwatch while picking the ticks off the cloth and stuffing them into the vials, and then start the timer again when the dragging resumes.

It’s a “citizen scientist” program that will be valuable for public health, Addis said.

“The whole goal is to find out what tick species we have here,” she said. “Even if somebody goes into a certain area and doesn’t find any ticks, that’s still good information to know.”

Nasty Pathogens

As far as scientists know, Colorado tick fever virus is the main pathogen carried by ticks in Wyoming, Smith said.

In most infected people, it causes mild to moderate cold or flu-like symptoms, such as fatigue and a sore throat, she said.

However, the illness can ebb and flow over the course of about two weeks, meaning that infected people might start to feel better, only to get sick again, Smith said.

And in a few cases, the illness is severe enough to require hospitalization.

A disease called Q fever can also be passed from ticks to humans, Smith said. It is asymptomatic in many people and can also cause cold or flu-like symptoms in others.

Like Colorado tick fever, it can land an unlucky few in the hospital.

Lyme disease is the most dreaded tick-borne sickness. It frequently causes severe illness and can lead to long-term, chronic health complications.

So far, there’s no evidence that any species of ticks in Wyoming carry Lyme disease, Smith said. Wyoming people stricken with it were likely bitten by ticks elsewhere while traveling.

It happens mostly in coastal areas, and Wyoming’s climate is thought to be too dry for the species of ticks that carry Lyme disease.

However, a tick species capable of transmitting Lyme disease has been found in Utah, which has a similarly dry climate.

Get Out There And Pick Up Ticks

Ticks are usually most active in May and June, but July is also a great month to collect them, Smith said.

“Ticks are generally active from April until October, so there are several months out of the year when you can go out and collect them,” she said.

The more that’s known about the spread, density and species of ticks in Wyoming, the better public health can be protected, she said.

“We’re trying to build a data set and look for patterns,” Smith said.

Contact Mark Heinz at mark@cowboystatedaily.com

Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.