When I had a small homestead in NC, I had free ranging chickens and guinea hens, along with horses, goats and other assorted animals. I had very few flies or ticks compared to friends who didn't have fowl running wild! It was an obvious difference.
I love those open woodlands that prescribed fire provides. It's so nice to walk through and to see wildlife. I vote for more fires, well managed of course.
you can phase burn by section and get the best of both worlds a woodland full of fireflies in the spring and summer without ticks and chiggers ruining everything
There is never a magic bullet. What I got out of Adam's talk was: this is a strategy. It can be employed when situation become untenable. IMO, There is always a negative effect in every action we take. It comes down to cost vs benefit; which was stated in this video.
You could catch a bunch of fireflies and keep them indoors. Get ride of the leaf litter, and get critters that eat ticks, like guinea fowl, and then release the fireflies. Alternately, you could try phase-burning by section, as previously suggested. You could also drag a sheet along the ground, pick off the ticks that climb on it, and get rid of them.
problem with your way of thinking is illustrated clearly on government land. The native tree and other plant species are being over-run. They are all adapted to periodic burns, and the invasive species that are choking them out are not. By removing that process to favor one or 2 things you happen to like you are ultimately destroying the native ecosystem. Short term nearsighted thinking is a very human trait though, but it can be conquered. It NEEDS to be conquered if our land is to prosper.
(00:39) 6. Misting your shoes, socks and the lower half if your pants with a deterrent concoction of 7 drops of spearmint oil, 7 drops of eucalyptus oil and 7 drops of cinnamon oil in water with a spray bottle... I prefer my deterrent shaken, not stirred🌞
I do the same! Make my own like you do. Peppermint, eucalyptus, lemongrass, tea tree oil. Add witch hazel and water. Wish I had means to burn off some of my land. Ticks abound in S Ohio.
Yeah! I know for a fact that eucalyptus oil repels ticks. I had a tick in a square plastic container and put down a drop of eucalyptus essential oil in one corner to see the reaction. It walked the outline repeatedly, but every time around, it made a wide curve to avoid the eucalyptus oil.
I've been living with Lyme disease for over 8 years. It took 2 years to find a doctor to test me. The treatment resolved the shifting joint swelling and brain fog, but it excellerated arthritis in some joints. My land is full of trees and leaves and deer and field mice, and I pull dozens of ticks off every year. Continuous battle.
@@yangtse55Haven’t you ever heard the term? The Mayo clinic knows what it is. People who have low blood sugar know what it means. It’s a slight lowering of consciousness but not enough to pass out. There are lots of disease processes that list it as a symptom.
You need pyrethrin. Treat your clothes and shoes or boots. Look into it, apparently it's very good at killing or repelling ticks. I started getting sick from eating mammal meat after I was bitten by ticks in GA when I was 16. So I quit eating meat and now at 50 I don't know if I could eat it again but I don't miss it at all. Birds and seafood are enough, and I especially like catching my own fish. Flounder and redfish are awesome.
I'm not leaving my house without a pocketful of earthworms anymore. In all seriousness, awesome video as always. Professional, informative, and entertaining, great work man.
Also awesome to see you mention controlled burns. I'm no historian, but I had heard that even the natives practiced controlled burns for hundreds of years in New England prior to colonization, and stopping the practice has changed the landscape enough to seriously impact species like the New England Cottontail whose habitat is heavily dependent on new-growth forest. There was a study years ago from URI that they were likely already extirpated from Rhode Island.
Used to work on a 10,000 acre ranch which was primarily pine flatwoods & cypress ponds. The rancher regularly burned in early/mid winter to encourage certain grasses to grow and provide forage during an otherwise "lean" time of the year. Despite being out and about in the woods and brush every day, ticks were never a problem for me. But being in many areas which are rarely or never burned, I have had many tick bites, to the point that I spray my clothes with permethrin when I need to get out in the brush.
I was working on a pipeline outside of Ashland city Tn. in the 80's and slipped and fell on to a ball of seed ticks/deer ticks and was covered from head to toe. I picked ticks off me for a week and am so glad i didn't get any tick born disease.
When I was a kid, my bird hunting dog acquired had at least 250 of small sized ticks all of a sudden in the hunting field. I was shocked! I also have never heard anybody else experiencing this... thank you, for proving that my memory was not imagination.
@@dirtydantthepondboglim IM SURE IT WORKS, BUT PERMETHRIN IS SO VERY TOXIC TO THE HUMAN SKIN, LUNGS. NOT GOOD FOR OUR WATER SUPPLY EITHER. DEET IS TOXIC TOO. WE ARE ALL SCREWED,& WITH THE RISE IN CANCERS, THYROID, ETC. SO SAD ALL OF IT. YOU KNOW WHERE THE TICKS CAME FROM? LYME CONNECTICUT. PROLLY SOME BIO-LAB OOOPSIE
I burned the leaves and deadfall from most of my place a few years ago. My main goal was tick reduction. My secondary goal was to have the ability to walk through the place without having everything snagging my clothes. One unforseen result was the decline of woodpeckers. There are probably other species that evacuated the premises that I'm not aware of. There was a decline in mice, too. I hope to find the time to burn the same section again this winter. My lawn around the house has an abundant supply of earthworms. Thank you for this presentation.
@larryweinberg1191 A couple of my neighbors have raised chickens. Foxes are a problem. I don't want to kill foxes because they help eliminate mice, rats, snakes and squirrels.
My grandpa grew up in rural wisconsin during the depression. He said he never heard of ticks til the 70's. He also said they had fires often when he was a child. I think your findings are absolutely correct. There is a prairie i would walk often. Would occasionally get ticks except on the years they burned it. Keep up your great work!
A woman on her deathbed suffering from Lyme disease wanted to pass away in a warm clime, she was in continual torment and one day she stumbled into a nest of ground bees and swarmed, she was oddly relieved; she wanted to die. 911 was called, rushed to the hospital with hundreds of bee stings. Lyme disease gone.
It’s a real story that has since been studied and confirmed in laboratory tests. National Library of Medicine 2017 Nov 29 Antimicrobial Activity of Bee Venom and Melittin against Borrelia burgdorferi “Abstract Lyme disease is a tick-borne, multi-systemic disease, caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi. …” …”conclusion, the findings from this study showed that whole bee venom and melittin were effective against all B. burgdorferi morphological forms in vitro, including antibiotic resistant attached biofilms. Though the findings from this in vitro study cannot be applied directly to clinical practice, it gives insight into the potential use of bee venom and its components against B. burgdorferi.”
Yes that's right. I'm not sure why that wasn't more directly addressed in his video. Prescribed fires for the sole purpose of reducing tick populations seems very short-sighted. It might have some effects that are deemed positive for humans, but undoubtedly there be some negative.
Thank you! Great video! I do hope we can find a solution to the tick epidemic. I miss the days of our childhood without this concern. My anecdotal experience… I got Lyme in 2021 from a tiny tick in my wood chip garden. We had lots of worms and a frog pond; but, also a favored tick habitat. Our neighbors accidentally set fire two two acres of their wooded property one year. And now that I think of it I never had a tick on us our our dog in that area. I read that mice are the major carriers of tick. I’m not a huge fan of perimethian but do make the cotton soaked tick traps for mice to make their nests. Since I was bed ridden sick for six months, I’m less of a fan of Lyme than perimethian. We lived north of Pittsburgh in Beaver County.
Great video Adam. I had a nasty experience looking for mushrooms when I stepped into (I was told) a nymph nest of ticks. I had over 100 on me! My daughter who pulled off most of them thanks me daily for that memory! lol. Thank God though no Lyme.
I heard someone say that jumping worms can elevate high enough to reach the tick heights on the shrubbery that the Knights of Nee would otherwise acquire. Oh, forget that! I hear the information here. I have yet another appreciation level for earthworms. Now that you mention it, I have found more ticks in dry, shallow topsoil fields (low earthworm populations). Does not mean that is empirical evidence, it just means MY observations. I do not suggest to anybody, but every Spring I add dry hay onto the top of my gardens and then use a propane flame thrower (replicate a forest fire) to obliviate "weed" seeds and keeps the soil healthy (as rototilling depreciates the soil quality). I then add much organic mulch to top off the garden, let it set, then later plant. Stupendous results. The last time I had a known tick in my gardens is back in the years that I used to rototill.
Yeah, makes sense for your property. I don't want worms to eat up all the mulch, I use mulch in my gardens, bare soil bad. Chickens are strong foragers and scratchers. I wonder about quail too. Make a fully protected garden for them to roam, cutely forgaing underneath plants. They make cuter noises than chickens :)
@@rogercunningham9987 Nice, always top my gardens with leaves and throw whatever scraps around on them. Like you said, worms love it and make great soil.
Terrific video Adam! I live in CT where the first case of Lyme Disease was diagnosed. Ticks are off the charts in the New England region. It's just something in nature that we have to live with!
Living in CT, I have seen what appears to be a correlation between the tick population of a given year and how much snow we did or did not get the previous winter. If we got a lot of snow cover there always seems to be more ticks in the Spring and then again in the fall and I have even encountered numerous texts during a February thaw where we had patches of open grassy ground interspersed with patches of snow. Last winter of course we had very little snow and it was relatively dry, and we've been in a drought condition all summer and fall; Some locales have reported lots of ticks but I've seen very few this year in areas where typically I've come to expect many of them. Walking my 3 dogs daily on local trails, if there are ticks in the area we'll know it pretty quick!
@@goodun2974I too live in CT. This spring showed very low tick numbers on my property and very high this fall. While it is very dry hear, the leaf litter is abundant. It's interesting to track environmental changes throughout the seasons and years.
Lyme disease: Man made biological warfare. Just as we took the Nazi space scientists; we also took their biological warfare scientists. Developed/studied it on Plum island, located between Lyme Connecticut & Long Island. Hence the name “Lyme.” Dr’s unknowingly are part of the coverup & often don’t order a simple blood test. If someone wants to risk turning their life upside down (Big Brother) I’m sure the Library of Congress has the research records & possibly an admission it escaped Plum Island…
@@goodun2974 Lyme disease: Man made biological warfare. Just as we took the Nazi space scientists; we also took their biological warfare scientists. Developed/studied it on Plum island, located between Lyme Connecticut & Long Island. Hence the name “Lyme.” Dr’s unknowingly are part of the coverup & often don’t order a simple blood test. If someone wants to risk turning their life upside down (Big Brother) I’m sure the Library of Congress has the research records & possibly an admission it escaped Plum Island…
This couldn't be better timed, we have a stunning amount of post-frost ticks this year in Southern NH. I will try anything to reduce their numbers in the years to come.
I had infinite ticks in my backyard. I tried poisons. Fail. CHICKENS WIN! Chickens destroyed them completely and also got rid of scorpions and other bugs. Chickens are a gift from God!
I heard this rumor too. Some accident in Lyme, Conneticut? A research lab with poor standards or poor walls? Whatever the reason, we should do more to research remedies.
There used to be a prairie chicken especies living in the areas where Lyme disease is prevalent today (it was overhunted) maybe introducing them back could help
In some parts (NE?) of the US, eathworms are considered an invasive Eurasian species, the native ones having been wiped out sometime during the last glacial maximum ("ice age," though technically we are still in one since the polar ice caps are permanent). Supposedly several forest understory plant species need the thick leaf litter (not too fond of actual dirt?) that results when there are no earthworms to plow it into the soil and accelerate its decomposition. Of course the Northeast also has some of the worst Lyme Disease. In the Southeast, deer ticket also exist (as do native eathworms, but the soil is often younger and infertile), but one of their favorite nonhuman hosts seems to kill off the pathogens rather than perpetuate it as do the northern hosts (blood sources).
I grew up on eastern Long Island, NY. The deer tick numbers are incredible. I’m skeptical how well this worm strategy works. Plenty of worms in the soil on LI. A walk through brush at certain parks will leave you COVERED in deer ticks, even in dry seasons.
I used to inspect youth camps for the state dept of health. They gave me the Lyme vax. Called the company and asked why normally you can get Lyme's disease again and again. The surface antigen on the borrelia bacteria changes shape when going from a cold blooded insect to a warm blooded mammal. The vaccine works because it was designed for the surface antigen when in the human body. I just pull the ticks off. But ended up with another tick borne disease: Babesiosis. Note - only found out because I donate blood and they do a test for that antibody.
Loved the buildup, smiled bc I knew and glad to hear u say. I'm on about year 7 of prescribed burns. Self-taught and tailored for my specific homestead. Actually engaged in at this time. Some areas burn 2 yrs, some evry year, some never. Chickens currently hunting unburned leaf litter/mulch areas. Love your channel, cheers!
I haven't had a single plant lost to cutworms once my neighbor started keeping chickens - I rarely see them in my yard, but I can definitely see their efforts.
I did notice this myself in NJ over the last several years. We had some really large worms almost the size of snakes and they dried out the leaf litter. There are less red backed salamanders now, and I suspect the decline is also due to reduced leaf litter.
We NEVER had a tick problem in the northeast in the 50's, 60's and even the 70's. They suddenly showed up and exploded in the 1980's. Some people wrongly blame wild turkeys for some strange reason but that's a myth. Nobody knows why. But it's 100% true there were little to no ticks when I was a kid, and certainly not black legged ticks.
Hi, Adam. I'm a 70-year-old from Sonoma County, Ca. I've collected mushrooms for 45+ years in the North coast, and love your vids on that. You:ve made an important video here. I am familiar with nine species here, well, in Calif. From your video I learned many things new to me, like not getting immunity after one lyme-disease battle! Wow!... And mamy more things. Remember, I've been in dense forests and 14-foot-high huckleberry thickets extending hundreds of yards(where the edulis is!)- for YEARS collecting edible, and sellable, mushrooms. I thought I knew ticks better. Tho I am good at removing them. Thank you for a very thorough study,Adam.
Am I missing your video on how to personally be proactive to avoid tick borne illnesses that you brought up at the beginning of this video??? I looked for it, but to no avail… I would really appreciate a link from anyone! Thank you so very much for sharing your knowledge.
Wonderful video Adam. PLEASE keep educating people so this knowledge does not die out as is seems the earthworms are. We've seen way fewer earthworms when we turn over logs 😢
Huh? There is rapidly spreading worm invasion going in in the united states, the mexican jumping worm. I work as a gardener in VT and see truly absurd amounts of worm sometimes. Eartrhworms are actually invasive to this continent in the first place, not great for all ecosystems, especially not this new aggressive one that loosens and destabilizes the soil. There is no shortage of worms, lol, eco-guilt expresses itself in the silliest ways sometimes.
We practice No Mow May for the bees and Leave the leaves in the fall.... we like to help out our pollinators and other littles out there. My neighbors don't really agree but idc if it helps and it does help my grass and other plants as well. 🐝🐞🍁🍂
We should also restore wolves. They are keystone predators that kept deer population under control. Fewer deer means fewer ticks and a healthier deer population.
Eastern coyotes are bigger than they used to be and certainly larger than coyotes of the Western prairies. They're not as solitary as the Western Coyote and sometimes hunt in packs which might be partially due to inbreeding with dogs or even wolves. Anyway, the Eastern coyotes will sometimes attack deer and they do help keep the population down. We also have black bears, another apex predator, becoming pretty common in recent years. Bobcats are fairly common as well, and they can certainly take down fawns or small deer.
interesting but it also sounds a bit like less forest = less tics I'm not sure that's a good strategy I know burning can benefit forests but this should be done wisely and with good understanding of the local ecology and climate
Interesting idea. There is another approach. More snakes equals less lyme disease. The ticks attack rats etc rodents. And the snakes eat the rats and digest the ticks too. Not my idea. I read it somewhere awhile back.
This was so enlightening and genuinely novel and useful. I've known about ticks. I've known about fires. I've even known about parasitic relations between species. But you integrated everything beautifully here. 10/10 will share this one and keep coming back to it. This is why RUclips exists (not that I'm a fan of the corporation...just saying...having a platform for this info is vital). Thanks again!
I've been volunteering in Great Falls Park in VA, primarily pulling invasive garlic, mustard, stiltgrass, and wavyleaf basketgrass. despite a deer overpopulation and the number of hours I spend off-trail in the woods I have not had a problem with ticks, to the point that I stopped taking precautions. I was chalking it up to the high number of wolf spiders in the leafy areas, and the suppression of ticks in the areas in which a monoculture sea of relatively dry stiltgrass has choked out 95% of the native plant growth.
Fire is also satisfying. I feel a vindictive pleasure imagining them popping in the heat. Been biten so many times. Never been tested or had the bullseye, but I figure it's impossible I haven't been infected. I live outside and work as a gardener in VT, have had many dozens of deer ticks attach to me and some of the bites stayed itchy for a couple weeks. I am not prone to illness so I'm gonna just not worry about it and do what I can to support my health, like intermittent fasting and eating polyphenol-rich foods and teas. I'll probably slowly go mad from brain degeneration from chronic lyme, lol :)
The biggest problem are city people who do not understand forestry and unquestioningly believe Smokey Bear's indoctrination. They also get all torn up that somebody might remove a tree without replacing it. Let nature take care of such matters in ways normal to each environment.
And yet, too much rain, such as you'd find in the temperate rain forests of Oregon and Washington state also seems to be a problem for ticks. The mushroom foraging channels I watch from the Pacific Northwest such as Mushroom Wonderland tell me that they very rarely encounter ticks.
Connecticut (the literal epicenter of Lyme disease) is too densely populated for burning (maybe central/west penn would be better suited), so worms it is!
If your property is mid sized like an acre or less of woods you could rake your walking paths. If you pile up leaves by your favorite trees and also make a compost area. Then you could reduce the ticks in your yard and have extra organic compost material for growing crops.
North of Kansas, out to New York and Seattle, _everything_ is non-native. Nightcrawlers are an essential component to healthy forest growth; huge piles of slowly moldering leaf litter are not. In other parts of the continent, we are recovering from having been submerged under the ocean for a few hundred thousand years, or have had all top soil removed completely by erosion following the melting of the Laurentide sheet. Natural disasters happen, and the planet changes .. so the sooner we accept that we are participating in a restoration project, not a preservation project, we can all move on to a better, healthier future for all of Earth's inhabitants.
The 'jumping worms' that have been taking over, are completely removing the leaf litter in some areas. I live far enough north that the winter pushes them back. But I really question how harmful the nearly complete leaf litter layer would really be over time to the whole forest ecology.
Before earthworms from Europe were introduced to America by early setylers and colonists, the upper half of North America was completely devoid of earthworms and The breakdown of leafletter and falling tree limbs was done completely by fungi and mushrooms, many of which of course have a symbiotic mycrorhizal relationship with certain trees. I have to wonder if some of our native tree species that have been nearly wiped out by introduced plant diseases would have fared better had we not exchanged their fungal network for a network of earthworm tunnels.
While you make very good points in this video, I would also like to add on so that people do not go out and mess up the ecosystem around their homes. Many native and beneficial insects also rely on leaf litter to survive the winter. Completely eradicating all detritus from your land permanently will reduce/destroy the populations of beneficial insects. You may not notice their existence now, but you will notice their absence later when you have more nuisance insects that used to be population controlled by the beneficials. Leaf litter also breaks down and improves soil quality, which is important for your plants/lawn and also water drainage. TLDR: do not permanently remove leaf litter. Periodic removal is probably best. Employ diverse tic reduction strategies.
Here in the Pacific North West rain forest, tick season for us is November to March, straight through our mild rainy winters (mostly black legged ticks).
@@goodun2974 I don't find many on my body, but my dogs pick up a dozen ticks every year, enough to justify prophylaxis with Brevecta over the high risk months.
Man, I hope this video DOES NOT inspire people to throw earthworms into our temperate forests; the reduction in duff mass could be catastrophic to small animals and insects, then up the food chain to raptors and other predators. Ticks suck -- dress appropriately.
Yes! Say it... Say it! Prescribed burning! Dude! Yesssss! I had this thought just a few months ago. About reducing the dense moist conditions that ticks like. And I didn't fully think about the need for them be protected from desication directly. You are the bomb! More content where you talk about proposed and newly studied solutions to land, ecosystem and plant management where you suggest a solution that natives used or is much more effective without adding chemicals or biologics. Please!
There are techniques and times that determine how much of the forest floor burns. I couldnt speak about areas other than mine, but I can control whether or not that compost layer burns or doesnt. Current humidity, moisture content of compost, wind speed and more will determine the final result.
I thought I hated mosquitos until I moved to an area with a heavy tick population. Ugh. Fortunately, mowing the tall weeds and grasses had a huge impact on the ticks getting on us.
Had a friend that hunted southern tier Oneida Co. NY, shot a doe and dropped a tarp in the back of his truck to put deer on so as not to get some oil on carcass. It took 45 min to get back to his house, when he went to hang the deer up there were near a 1000 or better ticks in the tarp and many more on deer, DEC took carcass and destroyed it, issued another tag.
I hunt in the midlands of SC and I’ve only had one or two ticks on my clothes in 7 years hunting here. The deer I harvest hardly have any ticks I can see. I don’t know why but ticks are not a problem. Hilly landscape, clay soil with little topsoil, mostly closed canopy.
Interesting thoughts. The natural cycle of fire is integral in many ways. For my purposes, in northern Wisconsin, controlled burning seems nonexistent. Whether that is due to risk or any of the myriad other factors, who knows? Difficult discussion.
In my experience earthworms eat everything good out of soil leaving clay. We would put manure on our garden & flower beds & in a year or two it's mostly gone. I had been warned about earthworms causing this problem & didn't believe it til we had first hand proof. I've had chickens again for a number of years & they have cleaned out the worms. Thank God!!!
Ya it could mess up plants and mushrooms in the woods where there's not any or less worms Some plants need that insulating leaf littler to help keep them warmer in the winter
It's hit and miss. When I lived in the city my dog and myself got quite a few ticks. Now I live near the Atlantic, with thousands of acres of forest with 10" of leaf litter, herds of whitetail, rabbits, foxes etc. Haven't had a tick in many years. ?
Excellent question especially considering that non-native earthworms introduced from Europe likely changed the balance and prevalence of saprobic and mycorhizal mushroom and fungi species of North America, as well as how they interacted with native tree species.
It would be a higher power indeed that could manipulate an ecosystem as massively complex as a forest to remove one entity and not dramatically change the entire system permanently.
In S. Ohio there are reports of an invasive tick. Pasture infestation estimated to exceed 1 million Asian longhorned ticks. The article said cattle died from blood loss.
My take... the tics serve some purpose to nature... let nature deal with them. Every time an "ecologist" has some kind of idea... it causes nature to be out of balance and causes more issues than not.... sometimes the best way to help nature.. is to leave it alone
While I LOVE the idea that action would throw natural landscapes out of balance, and that we should just leave things alone and they will recover... It's just not true anymore. I'm not sure how things are in your location, but the last two years have yielded unusually mild winters in my location which have contributed to a huge boom in the tick population and therefore tick-borne illness. Invasive species and climate change are destroying biodiversity and altering the composition of ecosystems, and humanity generally doesn't have anything to blame for those things but ourselves. While the interest in eradicating ticks stems from the selfish desire to curb tick-borne illness in our own species, I think humanity has the responsibility to do what we can to mend the damage that has been caused by our prior ignorance or carelessness.
@@beckitonges4313 its not true anymore because nature is not nature.. we have interfered with it to the point that its natural defenses and balance is gone. BUT, when ecologists start introducing strange species/animals/plants... there always seems to be something they did not think about and its usually not reversable. Here we are trying to alter the woods because we don't like tics (I know he is not saying that but the concept of introducing worms means someone is thinking about how to get rid of these tics).... possums eat like 1000 ticks a day...
I'm thinking the scientists should be studying lizards and salamanders and making more homes for them in a woodland setting and encouraging more birds into areas ,even small things like making stone or brick structures for the amphibians helps dramatically, maybe planting berry bushes that are food sources for birds.
cheers. you sure did your homework on ticks. Goats are sometimes used for vegetation management. Sounds almost comical, but maybe someone can experiment with hauling out chickens to tick sites. Suppose figuring out how many chickens per acre would be a start. May need a guardian dog or 2 with them to fend off predators.
Evidence has shown non-native earthworms produce better soil for invasive plant species such as Japanese buckthorn which also produce better habitats for ticks. Earthworms also change the soil profile which changes nutrient cycling in north-eastern forests.
I miss open woods, the fields here have grown like Vancouver Island and I check for ticks almost every step. So far I've been lucky enough but I know it will only get worse...
When I had a small homestead in NC, I had free ranging chickens and guinea hens, along with horses, goats and other assorted animals. I had very few flies or ticks compared to friends who didn't have fowl running wild! It was an obvious difference.
As one who nearly died from Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever I really, really appreciate this video! Thanks, Adam.
I love those open woodlands that prescribed fire provides. It's so nice to walk through and to see wildlife. I vote for more fires, well managed of course.
While I do have ticks, I also have fireflies. Getting rid of the leaf litter would also destroy firefly habitat, which I am unwilling to do.
you can phase burn by section and get the best of both worlds a woodland full of fireflies in the spring and summer without ticks and chiggers ruining everything
There is never a magic bullet.
What I got out of Adam's talk was: this is a strategy. It can be employed when situation become untenable.
IMO, There is always a negative effect in every action we take. It comes down to cost vs benefit; which was stated in this video.
You could catch a bunch of fireflies and keep them indoors. Get ride of the leaf litter, and get critters that eat ticks, like guinea fowl, and then release the fireflies. Alternately, you could try phase-burning by section, as previously suggested. You could also drag a sheet along the ground, pick off the ticks that climb on it, and get rid of them.
problem with your way of thinking is illustrated clearly on government land. The native tree and other plant species are being over-run. They are all adapted to periodic burns, and the invasive species that are choking them out are not. By removing that process to favor one or 2 things you happen to like you are ultimately destroying the native ecosystem. Short term nearsighted thinking is a very human trait though, but it can be conquered. It NEEDS to be conquered if our land is to prosper.
Th fireflies will recover from prescribed burning, wild fires are a natural process and HUMANS tampering with them (fires) has had dire consequences.
(00:39)
6. Misting your shoes, socks and the lower half if your pants with a deterrent concoction of 7 drops of spearmint oil, 7 drops of eucalyptus oil and 7 drops of cinnamon oil in water with a spray bottle...
I prefer my deterrent shaken, not stirred🌞
I do the same! Make my own like you do. Peppermint, eucalyptus, lemongrass, tea tree oil. Add witch hazel and water. Wish I had means to burn off some of my land. Ticks abound in S Ohio.
Pennyroyal oil is better than soearmint ir peppermint.
PSA- A number of essential oils are very toxic to cats, including peppermint.
Eating OR just inhaling!
It’s worth googling
Yeah! I know for a fact that eucalyptus oil repels ticks. I had a tick in a square plastic container and put down a drop of eucalyptus essential oil in one corner to see the reaction. It walked the outline repeatedly, but every time around, it made a wide curve to avoid the eucalyptus oil.
I've been living with Lyme disease for over 8 years. It took 2 years to find a doctor to test me. The treatment resolved the shifting joint swelling and brain fog, but it excellerated arthritis in some joints. My land is full of trees and leaves and deer and field mice, and I pull dozens of ticks off every year. Continuous battle.
yeah... its called living in the woods.. I do too.. I just check myself religiously...
I believe I have Lyme disease but can't get doctor to test.
Brain fog lol
@@yangtse55Haven’t you ever heard the term? The Mayo clinic knows what it is. People who have low blood sugar know what it means. It’s a slight lowering of consciousness but not enough to pass out. There are lots of disease processes that list it as a symptom.
You need pyrethrin. Treat your clothes and shoes or boots. Look into it, apparently it's very good at killing or repelling ticks.
I started getting sick from eating mammal meat after I was bitten by ticks in GA when I was 16. So I quit eating meat and now at 50 I don't know if I could eat it again but I don't miss it at all. Birds and seafood are enough, and I especially like catching my own fish. Flounder and redfish are awesome.
I'm not leaving my house without a pocketful of earthworms anymore.
In all seriousness, awesome video as always. Professional, informative, and entertaining, great work man.
Also awesome to see you mention controlled burns. I'm no historian, but I had heard that even the natives practiced controlled burns for hundreds of years in New England prior to colonization, and stopping the practice has changed the landscape enough to seriously impact species like the New England Cottontail whose habitat is heavily dependent on new-growth forest. There was a study years ago from URI that they were likely already extirpated from Rhode Island.
*im not leavimg my house without a pocketful of earthworms and a flamethrower anymore.
:)
Used to work on a 10,000 acre ranch which was primarily pine flatwoods & cypress ponds. The rancher regularly burned in early/mid winter to encourage certain grasses to grow and provide forage during an otherwise "lean" time of the year. Despite being out and about in the woods and brush every day, ticks were never a problem for me. But being in many areas which are rarely or never burned, I have had many tick bites, to the point that I spray my clothes with permethrin when I need to get out in the brush.
I was working on a pipeline outside of Ashland city Tn. in the 80's and slipped and fell on to a ball of seed ticks/deer ticks and was covered from head to toe. I picked ticks off me for a week and am so glad i didn't get any tick born disease.
When I was a kid, my bird hunting dog acquired had at least 250 of small sized ticks all of a sudden in the hunting field. I was shocked! I also have never heard anybody else experiencing this... thank you, for proving that my memory was not imagination.
i call it the devil's brown sugar. it's when you hit a fresh hatch and it sucks. permethrin treated clothing is a huge plus.
That is so foul I pray I never fall into one ever
@@dirtydantthepondboglim IM SURE IT WORKS, BUT PERMETHRIN IS SO VERY TOXIC TO THE HUMAN SKIN, LUNGS. NOT GOOD FOR OUR WATER SUPPLY EITHER. DEET IS TOXIC TOO. WE ARE ALL SCREWED,& WITH THE RISE IN CANCERS, THYROID, ETC. SO SAD ALL OF IT. YOU KNOW WHERE THE TICKS CAME FROM? LYME CONNECTICUT. PROLLY SOME BIO-LAB OOOPSIE
I burned the leaves and deadfall from most of my place a few years ago. My main goal was tick reduction. My secondary goal was to have the ability to walk through the place without having everything snagging my clothes. One unforseen result was the decline of woodpeckers. There are probably other species that evacuated the premises that I'm not aware of. There was a decline in mice, too.
I hope to find the time to burn the same section again this winter. My lawn around the house has an abundant supply of earthworms.
Thank you for this presentation.
I'm always shooing woodpeckers away. They drill holes in my house.
sounds like if you added some chickens you have even more success. Have heard some very positive outcomes with chickens.
@larryweinberg1191 A couple of my neighbors have raised chickens. Foxes are a problem. I don't want to kill foxes because they help eliminate mice, rats, snakes and squirrels.
My grandpa grew up in rural wisconsin during the depression. He said he never heard of ticks til the 70's. He also said they had fires often when he was a child. I think your findings are absolutely correct. There is a prairie i would walk often. Would occasionally get ticks except on the years they burned it. Keep up your great work!
A woman on her deathbed suffering from Lyme disease wanted to pass away in a warm clime, she was in continual torment and one day she stumbled into a nest of ground bees and swarmed, she was oddly relieved; she wanted to die. 911 was called, rushed to the hospital with hundreds of bee stings. Lyme disease gone.
Nice story next time add a vampire or ninja 😂
It’s a real story that has since been studied and confirmed in laboratory tests.
National Library of Medicine
2017 Nov 29
Antimicrobial Activity of Bee Venom and Melittin against Borrelia burgdorferi
“Abstract
Lyme disease is a tick-borne, multi-systemic disease, caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi. …”
…”conclusion, the findings from this study showed that whole bee venom and melittin were effective against all B. burgdorferi morphological forms in vitro, including antibiotic resistant attached biofilms. Though the findings from this in vitro study cannot be applied directly to clinical practice, it gives insight into the potential use of bee venom and its components against B. burgdorferi.”
@@4quallalso, do you think ninjas are fictional creatures?
The people commenting negatively are CLUELESS. This actually happened and has led to breakthrough treatments. Learn something before commenting!
When comments become click bait
Healthy soil = less environmental toxins
shocking, I know. /s
This is what makes ecology so rewarding. These indirect interactions, trophic cascades and others, are so fun to learn.
I love the idea of you teaching us about the animals in the forests we all love so much!
Unfortunately leaf litter is ALSO vitally important to many other insects overwintering. Get rid of all litter and you get rid of them too.
Exactly! I leave the leaf litter where it falls every year. My property is thriving
Yes that's right. I'm not sure why that wasn't more directly addressed in his video. Prescribed fires for the sole purpose of reducing tick populations seems very short-sighted. It might have some effects that are deemed positive for humans, but undoubtedly there be some negative.
Thank you! Great video! I do hope we can find a solution to the tick epidemic. I miss the days of our childhood without this concern.
My anecdotal experience… I got Lyme in 2021 from a tiny tick in my wood chip garden. We had lots of worms and a frog pond; but, also a favored tick habitat.
Our neighbors accidentally set fire two two acres of their wooded property one year. And now that I think of it I never had a tick on us our our dog in that area.
I read that mice are the major carriers of tick. I’m not a huge fan of perimethian but do make the cotton soaked tick traps for mice to make their nests. Since I was bed ridden sick for six months, I’m less of a fan of Lyme than perimethian.
We lived north of Pittsburgh in Beaver County.
Great video Adam. I had a nasty experience looking for mushrooms when I stepped into (I was told) a nymph nest of ticks. I had over 100 on me! My daughter who pulled off most of them thanks me daily for that memory! lol. Thank God though no Lyme.
Use wide tape like duct tape to take them off if they are plentiful.
Thanks for all you do and share with us Adam. 😊
I heard someone say that jumping worms can elevate high enough to reach the tick heights on the shrubbery that the Knights of Nee would otherwise acquire. Oh, forget that! I hear the information here. I have yet another appreciation level for earthworms. Now that you mention it, I have found more ticks in dry, shallow topsoil fields (low earthworm populations). Does not mean that is empirical evidence, it just means MY observations. I do not suggest to anybody, but every Spring I add dry hay onto the top of my gardens and then use a propane flame thrower (replicate a forest fire) to obliviate "weed" seeds and keeps the soil healthy (as rototilling depreciates the soil quality). I then add much organic mulch to top off the garden, let it set, then later plant. Stupendous results. The last time I had a known tick in my gardens is back in the years that I used to rototill.
I like the idea of huge flocks or roaming forest chickens. 🐔
Yeah, makes sense for your property. I don't want worms to eat up all the mulch, I use mulch in my gardens, bare soil bad. Chickens are strong foragers and scratchers. I wonder about quail too. Make a fully protected garden for them to roam, cutely forgaing underneath plants. They make cuter noises than chickens :)
Forest chickens are also known as Wild Turkeys! Here in New England I've seen flocks that number more than 60 birds.
If you pile leaves up with vegetable scraps worms will turn it into a pile of castings for your flower beds and garden @@HoboGardenerBen
@goodun2974 Ovenbirds like to forage in the duff of VT. Robins and other birds too. Turkeys must eat a lot of ticks, they're so big.
@@rogercunningham9987 Nice, always top my gardens with leaves and throw whatever scraps around on them. Like you said, worms love it and make great soil.
Interesting video to one who lives in a southern Virginia forest. Thank you.
Terrific video Adam! I live in CT where the first case of Lyme Disease was diagnosed. Ticks are off the charts in the New England region. It's just something in nature that we have to live with!
Living in CT, I have seen what appears to be a correlation between the tick population of a given year and how much snow we did or did not get the previous winter. If we got a lot of snow cover there always seems to be more ticks in the Spring and then again in the fall and I have even encountered numerous texts during a February thaw where we had patches of open grassy ground interspersed with patches of snow. Last winter of course we had very little snow and it was relatively dry, and we've been in a drought condition all summer and fall; Some locales have reported lots of ticks but I've seen very few this year in areas where typically I've come to expect many of them. Walking my 3 dogs daily on local trails, if there are ticks in the area we'll know it pretty quick!
@@goodun2974I too live in CT. This spring showed very low tick numbers on my property and very high this fall. While it is very dry hear, the leaf litter is abundant. It's interesting to track environmental changes throughout the seasons and years.
Lyme disease: Man made biological warfare. Just as we took the Nazi space scientists; we also took their biological warfare scientists. Developed/studied it on Plum island, located between Lyme Connecticut & Long Island. Hence the name “Lyme.” Dr’s unknowingly are part of the coverup & often don’t order a simple blood test. If someone wants to risk turning their life upside down (Big Brother) I’m sure the Library of Congress has the research records & possibly an admission it escaped Plum Island…
@@goodun2974 Lyme disease: Man made biological warfare. Just as we took the Nazi space scientists; we also took their biological warfare scientists. Developed/studied it on Plum island, located between Lyme Connecticut & Long Island. Hence the name “Lyme.” Dr’s unknowingly are part of the coverup & often don’t order a simple blood test. If someone wants to risk turning their life upside down (Big Brother) I’m sure the Library of Congress has the research records & possibly an admission it escaped Plum Island…
Glad to know our wiggly friend do more then most people realize
This couldn't be better timed, we have a stunning amount of post-frost ticks this year in Southern NH. I will try anything to reduce their numbers in the years to come.
I have been burning my gardens and it has drastically reduced the ticks.
I had infinite ticks in my backyard. I tried poisons. Fail. CHICKENS WIN! Chickens destroyed them completely and also got rid of scorpions and other bugs. Chickens are a gift from God!
Earthworms, native bees, and other creepy crawlies- I appreciate them so much!
And? Goats! Lol Gots eat ALL the bushes and undergrowth. No Bushes, way less Density.
And then, the purposeful burns, can be controlled much easier.
Bioweapon with legs.
If it was developed by the government and “accidentally“
Escaped/released on citizens is that still considered a bio weapon?
I heard this rumor too. Some accident in Lyme, Conneticut? A research lab with poor standards or poor walls? Whatever the reason, we should do more to research remedies.
The product Sawyer works great at repelling and killing ticks. I put it on rubber boots in spring.
There used to be a prairie chicken especies living in the areas where Lyme disease is prevalent today (it was overhunted) maybe introducing them back could help
All land needs a good supply of earthworms. Great for your soil too. Plus fishing day comes up you have your supply for next morning fishing time.
In some parts (NE?) of the US, eathworms are considered an invasive Eurasian species, the native ones having been wiped out sometime during the last glacial maximum ("ice age," though technically we are still in one since the polar ice caps are permanent). Supposedly several forest understory plant species need the thick leaf litter (not too fond of actual dirt?) that results when there are no earthworms to plow it into the soil and accelerate its decomposition. Of course the Northeast also has some of the worst Lyme Disease. In the Southeast, deer ticket also exist (as do native eathworms, but the soil is often younger and infertile), but one of their favorite nonhuman hosts seems to kill off the pathogens rather than perpetuate it as do the northern hosts (blood sources).
Very interesting topic. Thank you
I grew up on eastern Long Island, NY. The deer tick numbers are incredible. I’m skeptical how well this worm strategy works. Plenty of worms in the soil on LI. A walk through brush at certain parks will leave you COVERED in deer ticks, even in dry seasons.
Fantastic awareness, Adam. thank you
I used to inspect youth camps for the state dept of health. They gave me the Lyme vax. Called the company and asked why normally you can get Lyme's disease again and again. The surface antigen on the borrelia bacteria changes shape when going from a cold blooded insect to a warm blooded mammal. The vaccine works because it was designed for the surface antigen when in the human body. I just pull the ticks off. But ended up with another tick borne disease: Babesiosis. Note - only found out because I donate blood and they do a test for that antibody.
Loved the buildup, smiled bc I knew and glad to hear u say. I'm on about year 7 of prescribed burns. Self-taught and tailored for my specific homestead. Actually engaged in at this time. Some areas burn 2 yrs, some evry year, some never. Chickens currently hunting unburned leaf litter/mulch areas. Love your channel, cheers!
I haven't had a single plant lost to cutworms once my neighbor started keeping chickens - I rarely see them in my yard, but I can definitely see their efforts.
I did notice this myself in NJ over the last several years. We had some really large worms almost the size of snakes and they dried out the leaf litter. There are less red backed salamanders now, and I suspect the decline is also due to reduced leaf litter.
The best series!
We NEVER had a tick problem in the northeast in the 50's, 60's and even the 70's. They suddenly showed up and exploded in the 1980's. Some people wrongly blame wild turkeys for some strange reason but that's a myth. Nobody knows why. But it's 100% true there were little to no ticks when I was a kid, and certainly not black legged ticks.
Hi, Adam. I'm a 70-year-old from Sonoma County, Ca. I've collected mushrooms for 45+ years in the North coast, and love your vids on that.
You:ve made an important video here. I am familiar with nine species here, well, in Calif. From your video I learned many things new to me, like not getting immunity after one lyme-disease battle! Wow!... And mamy more things. Remember, I've been in dense forests and 14-foot-high huckleberry thickets extending hundreds of yards(where the edulis is!)- for YEARS collecting edible, and sellable, mushrooms. I thought I knew ticks better. Tho I am good at removing them.
Thank you for a very thorough study,Adam.
Am I missing your video on how to personally be proactive to avoid tick borne illnesses that you brought up at the beginning of this video??? I looked for it, but to no avail… I would really appreciate a link from anyone!
Thank you so very much for sharing your knowledge.
Here's the link: ruclips.net/video/l2P1YuauIXA/видео.html
Wow! THANK YOU, sir.
Fantastic information. Sending lots of love and peaceful vibes from the creeks and woodland of Missouri.
Wonderful video Adam.
PLEASE keep educating people so this knowledge does not die out as is seems the earthworms are.
We've seen way fewer earthworms when we turn over logs 😢
Huh? There is rapidly spreading worm invasion going in in the united states, the mexican jumping worm. I work as a gardener in VT and see truly absurd amounts of worm sometimes. Eartrhworms are actually invasive to this continent in the first place, not great for all ecosystems, especially not this new aggressive one that loosens and destabilizes the soil. There is no shortage of worms, lol, eco-guilt expresses itself in the silliest ways sometimes.
We practice No Mow May for the bees and Leave the leaves in the fall.... we like to help out our pollinators and other littles out there. My neighbors don't really agree but idc if it helps and it does help my grass and other plants as well. 🐝🐞🍁🍂
also it is good to take a shower after a long time in tick territory. It takes a while to find a spot on the body to dig in.
thanks for the education
Thanks, Adam!
We should also restore wolves. They are keystone predators that kept deer population under control. Fewer deer means fewer ticks and a healthier deer population.
Yeah, but do you want to live among wolves? I don't
Must suck to be scared of everything 😂@@HoboGardenerBen
They tough on cattle farmers too. Wolfs are destructive
Would prefer hunting season to be extended - this would be safer than wolves.
Eastern coyotes are bigger than they used to be and certainly larger than coyotes of the Western prairies. They're not as solitary as the Western Coyote and sometimes hunt in packs which might be partially due to inbreeding with dogs or even wolves. Anyway, the Eastern coyotes will sometimes attack deer and they do help keep the population down. We also have black bears, another apex predator, becoming pretty common in recent years. Bobcats are fairly common as well, and they can certainly take down fawns or small deer.
I will not worry about earthworms. Ticks, here in Florida, are a huge problem.
Thank you, Adam, for your scholarly coverage about the control of ticks.
interesting but it also sounds a bit like less forest = less tics
I'm not sure that's a good strategy
I know burning can benefit forests but this should be done wisely and with good understanding of the local ecology and climate
Also I joined a Perscribed Burn Association this summer and now I'm doing my first volunteer day for a burn this week! Thanks for you videos!
Interesting idea. There is another approach. More snakes equals less lyme disease. The ticks attack rats etc rodents. And the snakes eat the rats and digest the ticks too. Not my idea. I read it somewhere awhile back.
This was so enlightening and genuinely novel and useful. I've known about ticks. I've known about fires. I've even known about parasitic relations between species. But you integrated everything beautifully here. 10/10 will share this one and keep coming back to it.
This is why RUclips exists (not that I'm a fan of the corporation...just saying...having a platform for this info is vital). Thanks again!
Interesting good information !
5 species here in SE Ohio (Hocking/Athens counties)! i saw my first male Gulfcoast tick this year.
I loved that tick prevention video!
I've been volunteering in Great Falls Park in VA, primarily pulling invasive garlic, mustard, stiltgrass, and wavyleaf basketgrass. despite a deer overpopulation and the number of hours I spend off-trail in the woods I have not had a problem with ticks, to the point that I stopped taking precautions. I was chalking it up to the high number of wolf spiders in the leafy areas, and the suppression of ticks in the areas in which a monoculture sea of relatively dry stiltgrass has choked out 95% of the native plant growth.
I prefer a moist forest over a dry one any day. We certainly had a lot of wildfires here in connecticut this Fall.
Thank you so much for this video Happy holidays to you and your family❤
Fire is also satisfying. I feel a vindictive pleasure imagining them popping in the heat. Been biten so many times. Never been tested or had the bullseye, but I figure it's impossible I haven't been infected. I live outside and work as a gardener in VT, have had many dozens of deer ticks attach to me and some of the bites stayed itchy for a couple weeks. I am not prone to illness so I'm gonna just not worry about it and do what I can to support my health, like intermittent fasting and eating polyphenol-rich foods and teas. I'll probably slowly go mad from brain degeneration from chronic lyme, lol :)
Fascinating stuff!
The biggest problem are city people who do not understand forestry and unquestioningly believe Smokey Bear's indoctrination. They also get all torn up that somebody might remove a tree without replacing it. Let nature take care of such matters in ways normal to each environment.
The draught this summer killed alot of green undergrowth. Making it tough for ticks.
And yet, too much rain, such as you'd find in the temperate rain forests of Oregon and Washington state also seems to be a problem for ticks. The mushroom foraging channels I watch from the Pacific Northwest such as Mushroom Wonderland tell me that they very rarely encounter ticks.
I been subbed to AARON ( mushroom Wonderland si ce he stared. Peace from Louisiana
I have wondered if one could use some artificial selection pressure to modify Green muscardine disease to specifically target hard and soft ticks.
Thanks Adam. Well balanced and reasonable as usual. Knowledge and inflection 👍🏻
Connecticut (the literal epicenter of Lyme disease) is too densely populated for burning (maybe central/west penn would be better suited), so worms it is!
If your property is mid sized like an acre or less of woods you could rake your walking paths. If you pile up leaves by your favorite trees and also make a compost area. Then you could reduce the ticks in your yard and have extra organic compost material for growing crops.
Thank you for the education and evolution of tick management 🙏
North of Kansas, out to New York and Seattle, _everything_ is non-native. Nightcrawlers are an essential component to healthy forest growth; huge piles of slowly moldering leaf litter are not. In other parts of the continent, we are recovering from having been submerged under the ocean for a few hundred thousand years, or have had all top soil removed completely by erosion following the melting of the Laurentide sheet. Natural disasters happen, and the planet changes .. so the sooner we accept that we are participating in a restoration project, not a preservation project, we can all move on to a better, healthier future for all of Earth's inhabitants.
The 'jumping worms' that have been taking over, are completely removing the leaf litter in some areas. I live far enough north that the winter pushes them back. But I really question how harmful the nearly complete leaf litter layer would really be over time to the whole forest ecology.
Before earthworms from Europe were introduced to America by early setylers and colonists, the upper half of North America was completely devoid of earthworms and The breakdown of leafletter and falling tree limbs was done completely by fungi and mushrooms, many of which of course have a symbiotic mycrorhizal relationship with certain trees. I have to wonder if some of our native tree species that have been nearly wiped out by introduced plant diseases would have fared better had we not exchanged their fungal network for a network of earthworm tunnels.
Thank you, Mr. Adam, thank you.
While you make very good points in this video, I would also like to add on so that people do not go out and mess up the ecosystem around their homes. Many native and beneficial insects also rely on leaf litter to survive the winter. Completely eradicating all detritus from your land permanently will reduce/destroy the populations of beneficial insects. You may not notice their existence now, but you will notice their absence later when you have more nuisance insects that used to be population controlled by the beneficials. Leaf litter also breaks down and improves soil quality, which is important for your plants/lawn and also water drainage. TLDR: do not permanently remove leaf litter. Periodic removal is probably best. Employ diverse tic reduction strategies.
Very interesting video!
Here in the Pacific North West rain forest, tick season for us is November to March, straight through our mild rainy winters (mostly black legged ticks).
here in southern ontario area tick season is 365 days a year lately
The Mushroom Wonderland channel creator mostly forages in your area and he says he sees very few ticks.
@@goodun2974 I don't find many on my body, but my dogs pick up a dozen ticks every year, enough to justify prophylaxis with Brevecta over the high risk months.
Man, I hope this video DOES NOT inspire people to throw earthworms into our temperate forests; the reduction in duff mass could be catastrophic to small animals and insects, then up the food chain to raptors and other predators. Ticks suck -- dress appropriately.
Another great video!
Yes! Say it... Say it! Prescribed burning! Dude! Yesssss! I had this thought just a few months ago. About reducing the dense moist conditions that ticks like. And I didn't fully think about the need for them be protected from desication directly. You are the bomb! More content where you talk about proposed and newly studied solutions to land, ecosystem and plant management where you suggest a solution that natives used or is much more effective without adding chemicals or biologics. Please!
The forest is dependent on the compost layer for nutrient recycling/microbial soil life etc. Seems like burning it off regularly could be very bad.
You don't do it every year. It will improve soil health if done properly
There are techniques and times that determine how much of the forest floor burns. I couldnt speak about areas other than mine, but I can control whether or not that compost layer burns or doesnt. Current humidity, moisture content of compost, wind speed and more will determine the final result.
I thought I hated mosquitos until I moved to an area with a heavy tick population. Ugh. Fortunately, mowing the tall weeds and grasses had a huge impact on the ticks getting on us.
Goats. Fire. Fire goats. Goat fires.
Had a friend that hunted southern tier Oneida Co. NY, shot a doe and dropped a tarp in the back of his truck to put deer on so as not to get some oil on carcass.
It took 45 min to get back to his house, when he went to hang the deer up there were near a 1000 or better ticks in the tarp and many more on deer, DEC took carcass and destroyed it, issued another tag.
I hunt in the midlands of SC and I’ve only had one or two ticks on my clothes in 7 years hunting here. The deer I harvest hardly have any ticks I can see. I don’t know why but ticks are not a problem. Hilly landscape, clay soil with little topsoil, mostly closed canopy.
Interesting thoughts. The natural cycle of fire is integral in many ways. For my purposes, in northern Wisconsin, controlled burning seems nonexistent. Whether that is due to risk or any of the myriad other factors, who knows? Difficult discussion.
Another great video I love your channel bud. It seemed like you pulled the old bait and switch! Lol
In my experience earthworms eat everything good out of soil leaving clay. We would put manure on our garden & flower beds & in a year or two it's mostly gone. I had been warned about earthworms causing this problem & didn't believe it til we had first hand proof. I've had chickens again for a number of years & they have cleaned out the worms. Thank God!!!
Ya it could mess up plants and mushrooms in the woods where there's not any or less worms
Some plants need that insulating leaf littler to help keep them warmer in the winter
Hi Adam, I like the tree content but this is great and usable content!! You’re a good EDU speaker-
Just wanted to send appreciation!!🙏🙏🙏
It's hit and miss. When I lived in the city my dog and myself got quite a few ticks. Now I live near the Atlantic, with thousands of acres of forest with 10" of leaf litter, herds of whitetail, rabbits, foxes etc. Haven't had a tick in many years. ?
Hey Adam. I was wondering if the studies mentioned what changes to mycorrhizal fungi might be brought about by burning leaf litter?
Excellent question especially considering that non-native earthworms introduced from Europe likely changed the balance and prevalence of saprobic and mycorhizal mushroom and fungi species of North America, as well as how they interacted with native tree species.
It would be a higher power indeed that could manipulate an ecosystem as massively complex as a forest to remove one entity and not dramatically change the entire system permanently.
In S. Ohio there are reports of an invasive tick. Pasture infestation estimated to exceed 1 million Asian longhorned ticks. The article said cattle died from blood loss.
Good stuff 👍
My take... the tics serve some purpose to nature... let nature deal with them. Every time an "ecologist" has some kind of idea... it causes nature to be out of balance and causes more issues than not.... sometimes the best way to help nature.. is to leave it alone
YES!❤❤❤💯👍
While I LOVE the idea that action would throw natural landscapes out of balance, and that we should just leave things alone and they will recover... It's just not true anymore. I'm not sure how things are in your location, but the last two years have yielded unusually mild winters in my location which have contributed to a huge boom in the tick population and therefore tick-borne illness. Invasive species and climate change are destroying biodiversity and altering the composition of ecosystems, and humanity generally doesn't have anything to blame for those things but ourselves. While the interest in eradicating ticks stems from the selfish desire to curb tick-borne illness in our own species, I think humanity has the responsibility to do what we can to mend the damage that has been caused by our prior ignorance or carelessness.
@@beckitonges4313 its not true anymore because nature is not nature.. we have interfered with it to the point that its natural defenses and balance is gone. BUT, when ecologists start introducing strange species/animals/plants... there always seems to be something they did not think about and its usually not reversable. Here we are trying to alter the woods because we don't like tics (I know he is not saying that but the concept of introducing worms means someone is thinking about how to get rid of these tics).... possums eat like 1000 ticks a day...
I'm thinking the scientists should be studying lizards and salamanders and making more homes for them in a woodland setting and encouraging more birds into areas ,even small things like making stone or brick structures for the amphibians helps dramatically, maybe planting berry bushes that are food sources for birds.
cheers. you sure did your homework on ticks. Goats are sometimes used for vegetation management. Sounds almost comical, but maybe someone can experiment with hauling out chickens to tick sites. Suppose figuring out how many chickens per acre would be a start. May need a guardian dog or 2 with them to fend off predators.
When I go in the forest, I use dog collars that keep ticks away on my pant cuffs. It's very effective. Also, I look myself over very carefully.
Evidence has shown non-native earthworms produce better soil for invasive plant species such as Japanese buckthorn which also produce better habitats for ticks. Earthworms also change the soil profile which changes nutrient cycling in north-eastern forests.
I miss open woods, the fields here have grown like Vancouver Island and I check for ticks almost every step. So far I've been lucky enough but I know it will only get worse...
Opossums are reputed to be voracious consumer of ticks. The first nations used fire to clear brush and reduce infestations, while enhancing fertility.