Nantucket Foundation Drafts Tick-Reduction Plan for 9,000 Acres as Lone Star Tick Concerns Rise
Updated
Updated · Nantucket Current · Aug 14
Nantucket Foundation Drafts Tick-Reduction Plan for 9,000 Acres as Lone Star Tick Concerns Rise
1 articles · Updated · Nantucket Current · Aug 14
Summary
Nantucket Conservation Foundation will craft mowing and trail-maintenance recommendations this winter and roll them out next spring to cut tick exposure across its properties.
Five years of tick surveys on more than 9,000 acres will guide the plan, which the foundation says can lower human risk even if ticks cannot be eliminated from the island.
Climate change has weakened the deep freezes that once killed large numbers of ticks, while officials say Lone Star ticks appear more common this summer and Asian longhorned ticks have also arrived.
Blacklegged ticks and Lyme disease still pose the bigger public-health threat on Nantucket, where an oversized deer herd remains a key host and meaningful population cuts could take decades.
The work will be backed by the new Milestone Center, a planned on-island lab and education facility meant to speed ecological analysis and turn it into land-management action.