On Monday morning, a team of Old Dominion University researchers set out into wooded trails behind the Preserve on the Elizabeth neighborhood in Chesapeake.
They wore long pants tucked into socks and rainboots to deter ticks. At the same time, they pulled out tools to attract them: white cloths attached to wooden dowels, known as flags.
The group slowly walked along a path covered in pine needles, sweeping the cloth flags back and forth across leaf litter.
“It’s the gold standard method of collecting ticks,” said Darian Dean, a research technician with ODU’s Tick Lab. “The ticks think that something is passing by that could be a potential meal. So they latch onto this flag.”
Researchers stick the specimens with tape and slip them into vials to study at the campus lab.
But they are also testing a possible solution for thwarting these pesky parasites: the TickBot – a sort of mini-robot on wheels.
It’s a souped-up remote-controlled car. As the car moves, it drags behind a cotton cloth treated with permethrin, a chemical that kills and repels ticks.
Professor Holly Gaff, who runs the ODU Tick Lab, said it’s a small-scale approach to fighting ticks.
“We’re never going to get rid of all the ticks,” she said. “But the goal with the TickBot here is that we're trying to prevent an area from being heavily tick-infested, so it could at least give some level of protection.”
Those protections are needed now more than ever. Virginia has seen a surge in tick-borne illness in recent years.
Nationwide, federal health officials say this summer is on track to be the worst for tick bites in more than a decade.
A growing problem
Gaff came to ODU almost 20 years ago and helped start its outdoor surveillance program to better understand the status of ticks in Hampton Roads.
“It hadn’t been studied for a while, and things were starting to dramatically change at that point,” she said. “We've watched a lot of remarkable things that have happened in our area with changes in ticks and tick-borne illnesses.”
The Commonwealth’s tick problem has grown for a few reasons, she said.
The critters like moist environments, and increasingly warm weather fueled by climate change has helped drive some southern ticks into the mid-Atlantic.
Meanwhile, species previously relegated to the Northeast have spread southward because of changes in habitat.
“Hampton Roads, we’re kind of in this crossroads,” Gaff said.
Virginia’s restoration of forestland has increased the deer population — and deer bring ticks. Plus, suburban sprawl continues to push into green space.
“We move to the tick areas, where we want to live in nature, but nature is not in balance,” Gaff said. “Tick populations are often a reflection of how unbalanced the ecology is.”
Ticks – which are arachnids, not technically insects – feed on the blood of humans and other animals.
To find their hosts, they are attracted to heat, sound, movement and carbon dioxide, which humans breathe out.
Lone star ticks are the most prevalent species in Hampton Roads, easy to identify by a white spot on their backs. They can transmit Southern Tick-Associated Rash Illness and the dreaded alpha-gal syndrome, which causes an allergy to mammal products such as meat and dairy.
Lone stars are now established in more than half of Virginia’s localities, according to recent analysis by the TickZone tracker website, which ranked the Commonwealth as the 14th “most saturated” state for the tick species.
Black-legged or “deer” ticks are also present in the region and can carry Lyme disease and a parasite that leads to babesiosis, which has slowly established a foothold in Virginia.
The Virginia Department of Health says it’s seeing a surge in emergency and urgent care visits related to tick bites.
Emily Pickle, assistant professor at the Joint School of Public Health run by ODU and Norfolk State University, said tick-borne illness can be tricky to diagnose.
Symptoms, such as fever, nausea and fatigue, can be attributed to a range of conditions, and often don’t appear for weeks or months after a bite.
“We know those cases are increasing. But it's a hard thing to explain to a physician, to put all those pieces together in a way someone's like, ‘Oh, I recognize exactly what this is from.’”
For example, when alpha-gal does appear, people’s reactions happen two to eight hours after exposure. Health officials call it “midnight anaphylaxis.”
“Many people, they'll have a hamburger or they'll have steak and a glass of wine. They wake up in the middle of the night with horrible stomach cramps,” Pickle said. “It's kind of sneaky in that way.”
TickBot trials
The robot pilot project in Chesapeake started when the local homeowners association reached out for help.
Gaff said she’s gotten such calls many times over the years and is usually skeptical. But when she investigated the trails at the Preserve on the Elizabeth, she found “it was definitely one of the more tick-infested sites that we have this year.”
Seven-year resident Andrew Hillman can attest.
“My wife and I call it Downtown Tick Town, because any time in the summer, if we want to come down and walk to the dock or river, I'd say probably nine times out of 10 you're going to have a tick when you get back home,” he said.
“It really kind of discourages you from being able to enjoy the outdoors because you're worried about what sort of disease you might contract.”
Many residents avoid the woods altogether. But Hillman said he can’t stay away from the easy access to nature and wildlife.
“It’s just, the ticks kind of come with it,” he said.
During the summer, ODU researchers have been visiting weekly to test the TickBots. They call the prototypes Gene and Frankie. (Previous iterations have run through the alphabet from Alice to Eve.)
The team has sent other bots to officials along the Atlantic coast who are also interested in its potential.
Gaff said they’ve run experiments that appear successful in nature preserves, but “this is really our proof of concept” for rolling out in a residential area.
Willow Baker, a master’s student in biological sciences, said the machines drive back and forth along the edge of a trail.
So far, they’ve seen a decrease in ticks for about 24 hours before they start to re-emerge.
The ultimate goal is to commercialize the technology for residents like Hillman to use on their own.
“Yes, it’s a scientific research project, but it's something that everybody can do. Everybody can grab a control and direct a little car around, right?” Baker said.
“We've been able to just really bridge the gap between the tick research and the communities that we're trying to reach that will possibly be driving these around their backyards in the future.”
Here’s how to properly protect against ticks when spending time outdoors, according to the Virginia Department of Health:
- Use EPA-registered insect repellent on clothing and skin, ideally containing DEET. Those sensitive to traditional repellents can use more natural options such as oil of lemon eucalyptus. Permethrin can also be used to treat clothing several days ahead of time and lasts for several months, even after several washes. Make sure the treated clothing is dry before wearing it.
- Tuck your pant legs into socks. Ticks live mainly in forest leaf litter or shaded grassy areas. Tucking pants into socks helps prevent the creatures from climbing up your shoe onto bare skin.
- Check your entire body and pets for ticks after returning indoors. An ideal way to do so is in the shower. They often look like a small, dark mole and can eventually cause surrounding swelling or rash.
- Safely remove the tick, using tweezers to grasp it as close to the skin as possible and pulling straight upwards to avoid breaking its body. Afterward, clean the area with rubbing alcohol or soap and warm water.
- If you feel sick after a tick bite, tell your doctor that you were recently bitten by a tick and where, including the potential species.
- Save your tick for identification. You can send a removed tick to VDH in the mail through the Virginia Tick Survey initiative. Find more details on the department’s website.
