Surge in tick reports: Tampere owner removing hundreds of ticks from her dogs
A spike in tick reports on the TickLive app has left Tampere resident Taru Nurmela removing ticks from her two miniature bull terriers almost daily, while researchers say long-term trends point to more ticks overall.
Tampere resident Taru Nurmela is removing ticks from her two miniature bull terriers almost daily, as a spike in reports has been recorded on the TickLive citizen-science app run by the University of Turku and Pfizer, YLE reports.
Nurmela says the dogs usually pick up about 100 ticks over a whole year, but this season she expects that number will already be exceeded by May. Researcher Eero Vesterinen warns that while TickLive shows an unusually high number of reports, some of the rise reflects greater public reporting. Long-term trends, he adds, nonetheless point to more ticks overall. Last year the app logged 138,102 reports for the whole year; by late May this year reports had already topped roughly 118,700.
Ticks can transmit Lyme disease (borreliosis) and tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) to people. Illness in dogs is rarer but can sometimes require hospital care. Nurmela does not use chemical tick repellents on her breed, since they are not generally recommended and she worries about side effects and environmental harm. Instead, she checks her pets thoroughly after every outing and removes any attached ticks quickly and carefully, while continuing to weigh the risks and benefits of preventive medication.
Catch the full story over at YLE
