I'd like to push back on an Aug. 20 article in the NY Times magazine about a rising tide of ticks. The article surely scared the bejesus out of anyone who ventured into its hellscape of graphic descriptions and imagery. One quote in the article recommends "staying out of the woods" to reduce the risk of tick bites and the panoply of diseases they can carry, yet it warns that even urbanites can no longer be assured "that glass, steel and pavement are a moat against woodsy threats." While deer ticks wait passively for a warm-blooded meal to come along, lone star ticks "can sense a target up to 15 yards away and aggressively pursue their prey." I try to imagine the logistics of verifying that claim of "up to 15 yards."
The article's title, "The Summer the Ticks Took Over," stirs visions of hapless humanity reduced to cowering in a corner of the living room, scanning the perimeter for incoming ticks while clutching a can of bug spray.
My experience, living in Princeton and spending long hours in the woods, on the trail and off, tells a much different story. The idea that good bugs, in particular the pollinators, are in decline while pests are on the rise seems only half true. Pollinators are noticeably declining, but in my experience so are ticks, house ants and spotted lantern flies. I work in woodlands and fields without much precaution and without apparent consequence. Tick checks come up empty. Similarly, the odorous house ants stopped invading our house several years ago. Spotted lantern flies, the oft-mentioned invader of recent years, have grown scarce in my part of town.
The curious paucity of ticks goes beyond one perambulating land manager's observations. Others who work at Herrontown Woods report few if any ticks this year. One day I met two women who had driven from Long Island to Princeton's Herrontown Woods to take a walk in the woods. Their reason? Fewer encounters with ticks, which are way too numerous on Long Island.
Does this good fortune extend to Princeton generally? I reached out to Jeff Grosser of the Municipality of Princeton Health Department, who offered the following supportive evidence in an email:
"Here are 2025 and 2026 stats so far for confirmed cases of tick-borne disease in Princeton. No confirmed alpha-gal in Princeton last year. In general, numbers in Princeton and our region are lower this year than previous years. We are also working through a trend analysis year over year that we will certainly share once it is compiled."
2025 | PRINCETON | BABESIOSIS | <5 |
2025 | PRINCETON | BRUCELLOSIS | <5 |
2025 | PRINCETON | LYME DISEASE | 63 |
2026 | PRINCETON | ALPHA-GAL SYNDROME | <5 |
2026 | PRINCETON | BABESIOSIS | <5 |
2026 | PRINCETON | LYME DISEASE | 41 |
If ticks are in fact causing fewer cases of Lyme in Princeton, it likely arises out of factors both intended and serendipitous. Beginning in 2001, then Mayor Marchand and other courageous leaders instituted a combination of bow hunting and professional culling to significantly reduce the deer herd. The backlash from animal rights advocates made it into the NY Times, but failed to overcome broad community concern about the high incidence of collisions with deer on the roadways. After using emotion-laden words like "slaughter," "devastation," and "massacre" to describe the culling of deer, the Aug. 20 tick article quietly acknowledges that the venison goes to food pantries. Fewer deer also means more native plants surviving in the woods.
In addition, local predators have upped their game. Foxes are particularly adept at reducing the number of mice that serve as a reservoir for the Lyme disease microbe.
The article on ticks focuses on the bad news, particularly about lone star ticks that can give some people alpha-gal syndrome--an allergy to red meat. Much of the good news in the article is hidden in parenthetical and prepositional phrases: "(It’s worth noting that an alpha-gal allergy can, in many cases, eventually fade, if a victim steers clear of meat for a while.)" and "while Lyme is “basically treatable” in 95 percent of cases..." More overt is a robust discussion of vaccines and other deterrents working their way through research labs and trials.
The curious paucity of ticks prompted reflection on other scarcities and abundances in local nature. My experience in the field in recent years is stirring an ever more complex mixture of gratitude and grief. Below are a couple examples.
Butterflies were particularly scarce in early summer, making the sighting of 8 tiger swallowtails feasting together on the nectar of a buttonbush in front of Veblen House at Herrontown Woods a cause for at least a brief celebration. I've been seeing more monarch butterflies this summer, mostly solitary but two at the same time recently at a detention basin wet meadow we created in Smoyer Park.
While scary articles boldly grab our sleeves and demand to be read, the good news, resigned to its parenthetical status, approaches from behind and taps us softly on the shoulder. "By the way," it says, "did you notice?"
Note: Thanks to Jeffrey Grosser of the Municipality of Princeton Health Department for this additional info on vector borne diseases that may be of interest to readers.
"In terms of the larger, available data, please see below:
- This is a good map from the CDC that compiles several tickborne diseases on the county level (Rickettsiosis, ehrlichiosis, anaplasmosis, babesiosis, tularemia, Lyme): https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/
data-research/facts-stats/ geographic-distribution-of- tickborne-disease-cases.html
- NJSHAD has county-level Lyme data: https://www-doh.nj.gov/doh-
shad/indicator/view/ LymeDisease.County.html
- This is a vector borne disease data dashboard from NJDOH and includes a tab on tick activity: https://www.nj.gov/health/cd/
topics/vector_borne_disease_ data_dashboard.shtml
- If he wants to view vector-borne surveillance reports from NJDOH: https://www.nj.gov/health/cd/
statistics/arboviral-stats/"
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