Is it Long Island's worst tick season ever? How experts measure the problem.

Ask a Long Islander about ticks and there's a decent chance they'll say it's the worst year ever.

And they might've said that last year as well.

Living in an epicenter of ticks, Lyme disease, alpha-gal syndrome and other tick-borne illnesses has made residents more aware — and wary — of the tiny critters. But judging the severity of tick seasons is no easy task, experts told Newsday.

Increasing concern about ticks could be due to more human-tick encounters, a newly dominant species that's more aggressive or increased reports of diseases and allergies caused by their bites.

Or there could actually be more ticks this year. This winter's heavy snow kept ticks from freezing with a blanket of protection from cold weather, and the deer population on Long Island continues to grow.

Dan Gilrein, an entomologist with Cornell Cooperative Extension in Suffolk County, has heard people describe this as the worst year for ticks.

"I don’t discount personal experience as it certainly may be the worst for them," he said, adding those observations are likely related to how much, when and where people spend time outdoors.

Asked if this has been the worst year ever for ticks on Long Island, Suffolk County's chief entomologist wouldn't bite. 

"Tick populations fluctuate year to year and are dependent on many factors including weather, hosts and breeding success," Scott Campbell, head of the Arthropod-Borne Disease Laboratory for the Suffolk Health department, told Newsday in an email.

Surveillance and tick risk scores

Campbell and his colleagues collect ticks at several locations in Suffolk County by dragging a flannel cloth across the grass. Ticks cling to the cloth and are later brought to a lab.

This tick surveillance in Suffolk and Nassau counties is focused on finding out which species are here and determining if they carry bacteria or viruses that can cause illness in people. It is not trying to figure out how many ticks are on Long Island in a given year.

The state Health Department publishes density data on infected blacklegged ticks, which carry the bacteria that causes Lyme disease and other illnesses, collected at various locations. The data for Long Island varies over the past 13 years.

Using the density data and previous tick infection rates, the state also assigns a "tick risk score" from 0-5 for each region every year. Long Island currently has a score of 3.31 — the highest in New York. 

However, the agency admits on its website that tick density and infected ticks "can vary greatly within a very small area, and vary widely within a county or region. Therefore, these data should not be used to broadly predict disease risk for a larger or smaller area."

"Understanding change in encountering an infected tick over time is relevant for residents of various regions of New York State, but ultimately, it only takes one bite from an infected tick to cause illness," Health Department spokeswoman Marissa Crary told Newsday in an email. "Whether it is a 'high' or 'low' risk year or region, the department advises people to always take precautions to avoid tick bites."

Scores aside, there's little debate about one fact:

"There are a lot of ticks out there," said Russell Burke, professor of biology at Hofstra University who studies the ecology of diseases. "Whether there are more than usual, I don't know."

Burke noted that there is an increased attention on ticks this year because of reports of rare tick-borne pathogens, such as those that cause tularemia, also known as rabbit fever, and Bourbon virus (named after a county in Kentucky, not the spirit) infecting Long Island residents. Some scientists assumed ticks would die during the unusually cold winter. Instead, they survived staying under the cover of snow that served as a thermal layer of sorts.

"As soon as we start to hear about ticks in the spring, people being bitten, new diseases and new ticks, people start paying more attention," he said. "And if they start paying more attention, they see more."

'Bananas' tick year

For injured animals brought to the Sweetbriar Nature Center in Smithtown, this has been the worst tick season to date, said Janine Bendicksen, wildlife rehabilitation director.

A few years ago, the center saw anemic goslings, and found "teeny tiny ticks" attached to them, often killing them. Then they saw ducklings in the same situation.

"This year, it's gone, like, bananas," Bendicksen said, blaming an "explosion" in the deer population. "I had baby possums in their mother's pouch with ticks on them."

People growing up in the 1960s and 1970s might have seen dog ticks on Long Island and not thought much about it. 

Once Lyme disease cases started appearing on Fire Island in the early 1980s, blacklegged ticks became an enemy to reckon with on the East End.

"Long Island stands out in the tick-study community as a place that has seen a lot of dramatic changes in recent times," Burke said.

Lone star tick emergence

The latest development is the emergence of the lone star tick as the dominant tick in our area. It's a hunter that seeks out its blood meal instead of waiting passively by the edge of the woods, like blacklegged ticks.

Tularemia, Bourbon virus and Heartland virus are all linked to lone star ticks, as is alpha-gal syndrome, a meat allergy triggered by its saliva.

"Lone stars are some of the most aggressive ticks we deal with," said Burke. "They occur in large numbers and they swarm on us."

Thomas Mather, an entomologist and director of the University of Rhode Island’s Center for Vector-Borne Disease, is seeing the same pattern on his website, Tick Spotters. The program offers free tick identification and information for people who email in photos. Submissions come from all over, including Long Island.

He said that in 2014, for every blacklegged tick someone submitted, there was a lone star tick. But by 2024, the ratio had changed to six lone star ticks for every black-legged tick.

Since he's been tracking it, this "is the highest year by far of lone star ticks, the highest year by far of American dog ticks, but not for blacklegged ticks. They were just average," Mather said.

Emergency room visits

Another measure of tick impact is the number of people who go to the emergency room due to tick bites. Back in April, the CDC said weekly rates of emergency room visits for tick bites in all but the south central U.S. were the highest since 2017. By May, they had dropped and were surpassed by several previous years.

On the other hand, the nationwide monthly rate for August — 42 per 100,000 visits — is higher than all previous years going back to 2017.

Several experts suggested the active lone star tick, which has been known to walk across pavement and sand in search of prey, is making more contact with people. And in recent years, alpha gal, which can be caused by a lone star tick bite, has exploded in the public's consciousness.

"This season in particular is interesting because we are seeing more infections transmitted by the lone star tick and less infections transmitted by the deer tick," said Dr. Luis A. Marcos, an infectious disease specialist and researcher who specializes in tick-borne diseases at Stony Brook Medicine.

"More people complain about ticks because the lone star tick is aggressive," he said. "It's chasing people. People know it can cause a meat allergy with its saliva."

Researchers now know the lone star tick can carry a virus and bacteria and trigger an allergy, he said. But the studies need to continue.

"This means the saliva of the tick can change your immune system, can trigger an allergy," Marcos said. "And if it triggers an allergy, who knows what it's going to trigger in the future?"