shape
carat
color
clarity

Tick tock, they're coming to get you, it's only a matter of time

Matata

Ideal_Rock
Premium
Joined
Sep 10, 2003
Messages
9,936
Ewwww ticks are, imo, one of the creepiest critters on the planet and now the lone star tick that makes you allergic to red meat and all it's by-products is spreading due to climate change. Beware those of you who reside in its new range. Doesn't bode well for the meat industry either.

Blood-sucking ticks that trigger a bizarre allergy to meat in the people they bite are exploding in number and spreading across the US, to the extent that they could cover the entire eastern half of the country and infect millions of people, experts have warned.

Lone star ticks have taken advantage of rising temperatures by the human-caused climate crisis to expand from their heartland in the south-east US to areas previously too cold for them, in recent years marching as far north as New York and even Maine, as well as pushing westwards.

The ticks are known to be unusually aggressive and can provoke an allergy in bitten people whereby they cannot eat red meat without enduring a severe reaction, such as breaking out in hives and even the risk of heart attacks. The condition, known as alpha-gal syndrome, has proliferated from just a few dozen known cases in 2009 to as many as 450,000 now.

“We thought this thing was relatively rare 10 years ago but it’s become more and more common and it’s something I expect to continue to grow very rapidly,” said Brandon Hollingsworth, an expert at the University of South Carolina who has researched the tick’s expansion.

“We’ve seen an explosive increase in these ticks, which is a concern. I imagine alpha-gal will soon include the entire range of the tick, which could become the entire eastern half of the US as there’s not much to stop them. It seems like an oddity now but we could end up with millions of people with an allergy to meat.”

Full article at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/29/lone-star-ticks-increase-climate-crisis
 
Well I read the whole article and that was a scary read. I’m sure our Health and Human Services person will be right on this warning people.
 
:sick::sick::sick::knockout::knockout::knockout:

Ticks are so GROSS. Hopefully possums will be given their due credit this summer, and be left alone to eat tons of them.
 
My daughter works for a pet medication company. I get inundated with this kind of info and recommendations daily. Our dogs have to be on anti flea and tick meds almost year round now. They survive winter in Canada.
 
Hopefully possums will be given their due credit this summer,

I love possums. They were so easy to handle when I was a wildlife rehabber. Open the cage and possum drops over to play dead and starts oozing stinky stuff from its eyes, mouth open and drooling, tongue hanging out. To raise a possum from the dead, I only needed to wave a grape or peanut butter coated apple slice in front of its nose.
 
Thanks for the PSA, but I'm confused or just curious.
Why add the "Tok" to the thread title.
Tik Tok has nothing to do with ticks.

Or does it?
Tik Tok is probably does more harm to society than ticks.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the PSA, but I'm confused or just curious.
Why add the "Tok" to the thread title.
Tik Tok has nothing to do with ticks.

It's tick tock like the running of a clock and time ticking on by.
 
I love possums. They were so easy to handle when I was a wildlife rehabber. Open the cage and possum drops over to play dead and starts oozing stinky stuff from its eyes, mouth open and drooling, tongue hanging out. To raise a possum from the dead, I only needed to wave a grape or peanut butter coated apple slice in front of its nose.

I’m a little embarrassed by the number of possums (and owls, and bats) I follow on Instagram
 
I’m a little embarrassed by the number of possums (and owls, and bats) I follow on Instagram

I'm a fan of all of them. I have a particular soft spot for the flying foxes. I rehabbed only one bat, a baby Hoary Bat with wing injury from a cat. Stinkin' cute.
 
Well this is scary. I always check my dog when he comes in from the yard but I certainly don't want ticks jumping from him to me, or stalking me as the article suggests that they might. Did it say that something like Deep Woods Off helps? I didn't see that, but read quickly.
 
GET 3 FREE HCA RESULTS JOIN THE FORUM. ASK FOR HELP
Top