Climate Champ: Patrick Roden-Reynolds

Ask an Islander if they know someone who has contracted Lyme disease, Alpha Gal, or another tick-borne illness, and they are likely to say they know more than one person. Over the past few years to a decade, the prevalence of serious diseases spread by infected ticks has grown to a startling degree. Patrick Roden-Reynolds, the new head (and sole) biologist of the Martha’s Vineyard Tick Program, said he doesn’t want people to be so afraid of getting bit that they avoid getting outdoors and enjoying the natural beauty of the Island. “I think one goal of the tick program is to give people the tools and information they need to get out and live their lives, but also be protected from these illnesses,” Roden-Reynolds said. 

In 2011, the local boards of health fully recognized the threat of tick-borne illness, and formed the MV Tick Program in order to reduce the tick population and mitigate the public health concern of diseases like Lyme disease, tularemia, and others. In 2017, Richard “Dick” Johnson was hired as a field biologist for the program through a Martha’s Vineyard Vision Fellowship grant. Reynolds is continuing Johnson’s work by conducting yard surveys, having one-on-one conversations with property owners, and spreading public awareness about ticks and tick-borne illness. 

Bluedot Living spoke with Roden-Reynolds about his past work managing deer and tick populations, and how he is tackling the proliferation of ticks and vector born illness on the Vineyard.

Lucas Thors: How did you first come to the Vineyard? 

Patrick Roden-Reynolds: I moved here for this job in the beginning of 2022. My first time visiting the Island was in 2019 as a summer tourist. When I came here in 2021, my friends were planning on getting married at Felix Neck. They were walking around with one of the biologists, I think it was Suzan Bellincampi. She told them there was a new town biologist position opening up.

I was living in Las Vegas at the time, but I was looking to relocate and find a new job. I Googled “Martha’s Vineyard biologist job,” and a news article came up talking about how the boards of health had gotten this grant to hire three new positions. One was a tick specialist, a biologist. At the bottom of the article there was an email handle, so after a few months I sent my resume in. Lo and behold I got the interview, and here I am now. 

LT: Can you go into your background a little? Have you worked in wildlife management for a long time? 

PRR: My background is in wildlife science and conservation. My undergraduate degree was at Virginia Tech; my major was wildlife science which later changed to wildlife conservation. After college I worked different field technician ecology jobs for about a year or two before I was hired as a field technician for USDA and the University of Maryland doing an areawide tick control project. I worked that job in Maryland for six months and that rolled into a Masters position at University of Maryland. The program involved picking out different neighborhoods and testing a combination of tick control treatments. One was a spray that you could spray in your yard to kill ticks, and the other two options were host-targeted treatments: a baited mouse box to attract mice and kill the ticks on them, and a technology called a 4-poster deer feeder. It’s a little feeder you put out in the woods with a bin of corn. When the deer bend down and stick their heads in to feed, they brush up against a paint roller soaked in permethrin; it topically applies permethrin to the deer.

LT: What was the MV Tick Program like when you first took over for Dick? What were you focused on right out of the gate? 

PRR: There are eight different diseases that are transmitted by the three different species of biting ticks here. Dukes County has the highest per capita rate of tick-borne diseases across the state. I know we are number one for Lyme disease, same for babesiosis. Anaplasmosis is another tick disease that is more prevalent in the western part of Massachusetts, but that is pretty much the only tick-borne disease where we don’t come in first or second place. For tularemia, which is a disease that is endemic to MV and Nantucket, we have some of the highest rates in the country, not just the state.

When I showed up on the scene, I really just wanted to continue the work that had already been done. The MV Tick program sounds like a big official organization, but it has only been one person for a really long time. Dick Johnson essentially started the program back in 2011 and continued that work until 2022 when I was hired. He was the champion of the tick program. The main thing was the residential yard survey program, which as far as I know is unique in the country. We talk to homeowners specifically about vector-borne disease and reducing their risk; we go to properties and do private consultations with homeowners.

LT: What does your season look like? How do you allocate your time between yard surveys, public outreach, and scientific research?

PRR: My season starts in mid-May and runs through July 31, peak tick season. It’s really not that helpful to show up at someone’s house in April or September when I won’t find as many ticks. The goal is to find as many ticks as possible to get the largest sample size.

I get a lot of requests for consultations from residents who have used the service in the past and are curious again, or people who go to one of my talks or hear about the program through word of mouth. Theoretically I can fit 250 surveys in my season, and that’s if I schedule five a day perfectly, and there’s no time for other work, no time for this interview, no time for rain delays and cancelations, so typically the hardest part of the surveys is scheduling. It’s important to meet with the homeowners face to face and have as in-depth a conversation as they want to have.

I schedule about an hour to an hour and a half for each property visit. Most of that time is taken up by speaking with the homeowner. I have had some conversations that last for two minutes after the survey, and I have had in-depth, two-hour-long conversations. When I first show up I always ask if they have had the survey in the past, because now the survey program has been going on for 15 years. We have recorded close to 1,200 surveys and at least 200 unique properties — a lot of properties we will revisit. Depending on the size of the yard, the survey itself will take me about 15 to45 minutes at most. I go along the edge of the mowed grass, where the edge of the lawn meets natural vegetation. I basically drag a white sheet through the grass and see how many ticks grab on. I will also go wherever the homeowners want me to, whether that’s in the vegetable garden, back in the woods where the hammock is, trails that they’ve cut on their property. 

A normal number of ticks to find is like five or 10, but on some properties I find more than 50 ticks in about 20 minutes of searching. We identify the species of tick, whether it’s a deer tick, dog tick, or lone star, and identify any hotspots where you are more likely to find ticks. After I am done collecting ticks I give them a rundown, and recommendations for how they can reduce the risk of ticks in the yard and tick-borne illness. Sometimes that involves raking up leaf litter, mowing the lawn a little more regularly, trying to clear brush and clean up overgrown areas, and even more extreme options like putting up fencing or spraying the yard. 

I always discuss personal protection — it’s the number one preventative for tick bites. Treat your clothes with permethrin, cover up as much as possible with long pants and long sleeves, and use other repellents when necessary. Tick checks are still important, but I am really focused on preventing that initial bite. 

LT: Are there any identifiable factors that have contributed to the increase in tick populations, new tick species, and new tick-borne illnesses on the Vineyard?

PRR: This problem has gotten worse in our area. For some of the old timers who grew up here, it was really only the dog tick that people were concerned about. Only the adults bite humans, so back then you only had to worry about the big chunky ticks — they’re easy to spot and their infection prevalence is pretty low. Less than 5 percent of dog ticks are carrying anything. Deer ticks have become more abundant. They are more aggressive, human-biting ticks. The little nymphs are very hard to detect and the infection prevalence for those will be 10 times that of a dog tick. 

In the last 10 years with the lone star tick boom, it’s a whole new thing. When I am doing a talk or meeting with someone, I always say that when it was just the dog ticks and deer ticks, the public health concern was here, and I put my hand level with my eyes. And now with the lone star ticks, the concern is here, and my hand goes way up over my head. So it’s an additive problem.

There are a few contributors to this increase in tick populations and the prevalence of tick borne illness. I recently started to find a new species of invasive tick here, a longhorn tick. We don’t know yet if it’s a big public health concern or if it’s just another tick in the mix. I only found two individual longhorn ticks in 2023 compared to thousands of deer and dog ticks I collected. In 2024, I collected about a dozen longhorn ticks, and this year I have already collected about a dozen, and I am just beginning my survey season. The longhorn tick was not found anywhere in the country until 2017 when it was detected on a shipment of sheep traveling from an East Asian country into New Jersey. Since being documented, the longhorns have been popping up all over the Eastern Seaboard. That tick exists in the U.S. now solely because of global trade.

Whether it’s a tick that hitches a ride on someone’s dog while they are vacationing here or some other global interactivity dynamic, these ticks are able to reach new areas that they would never otherwise be able to. 

LT: Is climate change a major consideration when looking at the tick problem?

PRR: Ticks rely on moisture and warm temperatures to survive, so I think in New England and on the Vineyard where it might get warmer and wetter, that could benefit ticks. The warmer the seasons are, the longer ticks can be active, and the more likely they are to successfully find a meal and breed. But in South Texas for example, where it might get too hot and dry for ticks to survive, we might see a decline in tick abundances in some areas due to climate change. At the beginning of the tick season I try to see how early I can find ticks questing for meals. The earliest I have found a lone star tick is March 20. If winters continue to warm and average daily temperatures continue to increase, we might end up finding those ticks active on March 1, which increases the risk period for humans by another month. 

Another really significant factor is land use and development. The forests across the East Coast have been fragmented through suburbanization and development. The major tick hosts like deer, rabbits, turkeys, and mice thrive on fragmented forests and in proximity to humans. Edge habitat provides quality food and forage for deer and other animals, and by being near human civilization they are also protected from predators.

LT: The Island is facing an issue with the deer population. What is the relationship between disease-carrying ticks and deer numbers?

PRR: In the early 1900s deer were nearly extinct on the East Coast, and in the last 100 years we have had a complete reversal in deer abundance. Wildlife experts suggest that a healthy forest contains about 10 to 12 deer per square mile, whereas on the Vineyard you could see anywhere from 50 to 90 deer per square mile. 

Most tick hosts are typically game species, types of animals that used to be common food sources back in the day. Around 100 years ago people didn’t watch deer in their yard because chances are they were shooting them and eating them for dinner. We have lost those hunting traditions and humans have extirpated all the natural predators like wolves, bears, and mountain lions that used to exist on the East Coast. There is nothing keeping the large mammal populations in check. Especially this time of year, every deer probably has a few hundred ticks on them. 

We vilify deer, but you can throw in skunks, turkeys, rabbits, mice, and shrews. Ticks will have preferences on what they bite, but if it’s warm it’s likely to have ticks. Once, in Maryland, I came across a box turtle that had ticks attached to the scoots of its shell. That’s just how aggressive they can be.

A lot of folks here assume that turkeys are eating the ticks. They might eat some ticks, but tick literature will sometimes colloquially call the lone star tick the “turkey tick” because the larval and nymph lone stars will readily bite turkeys. I recently was able to pluck a hunter-harvested turkey that one of my friends got. We found at least 25 lone star nymphs on it.

LT: Do you analyze ticks for certain diseases? Do you collaborate with other scientists, researchers, and public health officials?

PRR: All the ticks I collect I send out to other people to help with their research because we don’t have the facilities to test the ticks here. A lot of the yard survey ticks go to Sam Telford at Tufts University. He is an infectious disease researcher who looks at disease ecology. I am getting more involved with Steve Rich out of UMass Amherst and the New England Center for Excellence in Vector-Borne Research. I also work with hunters pulling ticks off of hunter harvested deer. I manage the deer cooler at the Ag Hall, and I will go to the check station during shotgun season and I have access to the MV Hunt Club with their own cooler. A lot of those ticks I pull are analyzed by Sam and Steve.

Kudos to the health agents in each town who initially got the grant, they were the ones who had the foresight to hire this kind of position. In my opinion, I think every county should have a boots-on-the-ground position like mine, whether they are solely dedicated to ticks or they at least can answer questions about ticks.

LT: What is your favorite part of your job? 

PRR: In grad school when you are in wildlife science you can either go down the research route or the management route. I didn’t really want the academic route that I was on, but this position is a perfect mix where I do get involved in higher-level research, but in the end I am out in the field working as a biologist, which is what I’ve always been passionate about.

People are very appreciative of the work I do. Sometimes it can feel a little overwhelming because the tick problem here is so extreme, but I have never had a negative or unfruitful conversation about ticks in the four years I have been here. The community is thankful to have this resource available.

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