Townships ranked for wood tick risk

COUNTY – After staff reporter Bethanie Gengler reported a story earlier this spring that wood tick bites are up 47% countywide, the Waupaca County Post partnered with TickZone (https://tickzone.app), a website that tracks tick data at the township level and calculates a tick-risk score from 0 to 100 on a specific town or township.
Nathan Burnett built the website this summer. He said part of it was personal as his younger brother had Lyme disease when he was little. Burnett also built it because he was annoyed by how wood tick data is presented and reported.
“What bothered me is that tick information only ever existed at the state level, or at best the county level, and never for a specific town. A state map that says, ‘Wisconsin has ticks’ does not help anyone decide whether to check their kids tonight. The pieces to do better already existed, in disease surveillance and satellite land cover; they just were not put together in a form a person could use. So I built a way to score it town by town,” said Burnett.

In perspective
TickZone currently ranks 2,668 counties in 38 states. Of these counties, Waupaca comes in 102nd and Portage 141st. Both counties are in the top four and top six percent of the country.

Waupaca County ranks 17th of Wisconsin’s 72 counties, and 73rd of the 1,268 Midwest counties. Portage County ranks 29th in Wisconsin and 100th in the Midwest.
The highest-scoring county is Dukes County, Mass., which is Martha’s Vineyard; its reported Lyme rate runs roughly six times Waupaca’s. Wisconsin’s own highest is Jackson County, at about double Waupaca. Waupaca County’s reported rate is about 242 Lyme cases per 100,000 people a year and Portage County’s is about 195.

Methodology
TickZone starts with a county baseline from the county’s reported tick-born disease history. Next, data is pulled from satellite land-cover maps. The landscape is analyzed in 10-meter patches to measure the ecological edge where forest meets field.
“That edge concentrates the whole cycle in one place. The mice and other small mammals that infect ticks with the Lyme bacterium live in it, the deer that ticks feed on to reproduce move along it, and it is also where people walk, so it is the strongest single signal for where a person actually gets bitten. In Waupaca County forest cover ranges from 29 to 83 percent town to town; in Portage County, 18 to 67 percent. That spread, and the edge inside it, is why the rural townships outscore Stevens Point and Plover even though all three sit in the same county,” said Burnett.

Next, the data is adjusted for live weather. Obviously cold-blooded ticks are not active in winter but during other times of the year their movement fluctuates based on dryness, recent moisture, humidity, and temperature. For example, on hot, dry days, ticks recede into the leaf litter to retain moisture. The chance of getting a tick bite is low but mosquitoes and deer flies are still active. TickZone updates the tick-risk score daily as the weather information changes.

The species
The deer tick that carries Lyme (also called the blacklegged tick) and the American dog tick are present in Waupaca and Portage Counties. The lone star tick, known for the alpha-gal red meat allergy has no record in either county.

Notes on the numbers
The scores listed here are peak-season scores. The number gives a general baseline for tick activity. The website has score that is live and adjusted with daily weather reports. For example, on the first frost of the year, these numbers will plunge. The same goes for an extended drought with hot daily temperatures.

Waupaca County Tick Risk
1. Wyoming: 76 High
2. Harrison: 74 High
3. Helvetia: 72 High
4. Big Falls: 72 High

5. Iola: 68 High
6. St. Lawrence: 68 High
7. Farmington: 66 Moderate
8. Mukwa: 66 Moderate
9. Dayton: 65 Moderate
10. Matteson: 65 Moderate
11. Ogdensburg: 64 Moderate
12. Scandinavia: 62 Moderate
13. Scandinavia (township): 62 Moderate
14. Fremont: 62 Moderate
15. Iola: 62 Moderate
16. Royalton: 61 Moderate
17. Caledonia: 61 Moderate
18. Fremont: 60 Moderate
19. Waupaca (township) 60 Moderate
20. Lebanon: 59 Moderate
21. Dupont: 59 Moderate
22. Waupaca: 58 Moderate
23. Weyauwega: 57 Moderate
24. Embarrass: 57 Moderate
25. Union: 56 Moderate
26. Larrabee: 54 Moderate
27. Bear Creek: 54 Moderate
28. Marion: 54 Moderate
29. Lind: 53 Moderate
30. Little Wolf: 53 Moderate
31. New London: 53 Moderate
32. Manawa: 53 Moderate
33. Weyauwega: 53 Moderate
34. Clintonville: 52 Moderate

Portage County Tick Risk
1. Linwood: 64 Moderate
2. Hull: 64 Moderate
3. Park Ridge: 63 Moderate
4. Dewey: 62 Moderate
5. New Hope: 61 Moderate
6. Lanark: 61 Moderate
7. Whiting: 61 Moderate
8. Sharon: 60 Moderate
9. Belmont: 60 Moderate
10. Alban: 60 Moderate
11. Eau Pleine: 59 Moderate
12. Nelsonville: 58 Moderate
13. Stevens Point: 55 Moderate
14. Amherst: 53 Moderate
15. Carson: 52 Moderate
16. Grant: 51 Moderate
17. Plover: 50 Moderate
18. Amherst Junction: 50 Moderate
19. Amherst: 50 Moderate
20. Stockton: 49 Moderate
21. Almond: 48 Moderate
22. Buena Vista: 47 Moderate
23. Rosholt: 47 Moderate
24. Junction City: 45 Moderate
25. Plover: 43 Moderate
26. Almond: 42 Moderate
27. Pine Grove: 42 Moderate