Understanding Tick Activity In Minnesota This Year

Minnesota is known as the Land of 10,000 Lakes, but the number of tick bites this season might challenge that figure as we're now slogging through one of the worst years for ticks in a decade.

While our unofficial state bird, the mosquito, is always a pest we have to deal with during our warm weather months here in the North Star State, it's those ticks that are causing an issue this year, with tick bite activity reaching levels in our neck of the woods that we haven't seen in nearly 10 years.

Minnesota Tick Bite Numbers Reach Near-Record Levels

Here in the Bold North, there are about a dozen different types of ticks that are native to our state, but only a few species that you're most likely to encounter. According to the Minnesota Department of Health, those ticks include:

American dog tick (commonly called a wood tick) – commonly found throughout all counties of the state in wooded or grassy areas.
Blacklegged tick (commonly called a deer tick) – becoming more common in Minnesota and may be found in most wooded areas.
Lone star tick – rarely found in wooded or grassy areas in Minnesota. However, single tick reports have occurred throughout the state.

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But according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), those ticks have combined to give Minnesota and our neighboring Midwest states of Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, and Indiana one of the worst tick seasons for tick bites since 2017, the Hill reports.

Why Tick Activity Is So High Across Minnesota and the Midwest

The CDC said that 137 out of every 100,000 emergency department visits this April were related to tick bites. That's well above the average April rate of 56 per 100,000 and is just shy of the one-month incident rate record our region saw last May, when the number hit 153 per 100,000.

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The CDC also reported that an estimated 31 million Americans are bitten by ticks every year. So what do you do if you're bitten by a tick in Minnesota this year?

Rochester's own Mayo Clinic has some advice:

Remove the tick promptly and carefully. Use fine-tipped forceps or tweezers to grasp the tick as close to the skin as possible. (Don't handle the tick with your bare hands or use petroleum jelly, fingernail polish, or a hot match to remove a tick.)
Secure the tick and take a picture. A picture of the tick can help you identify what type it is and whether you are at risk of a disease.
Wash your hands and the bite site. Use warm water and soap, rubbing alcohol, or an iodine scrub.

Mayo Clinic goes on to say that you should call your doctor or health care provider if you weren't able to completely remove the tick, if a rash continues to get bigger, if you develop flu-like symptoms, if you think the bite site is infected, or if you think you were bitten by a deer tick.

The good news is that tick bite activity in Minnesota and around the Midwest usually peaks in May and remains higher in June before dropping off until another smaller spike in the fall.