<![CDATA[MOTHER LODE TRAILS

<![CDATA[MOTHER LODE TRAILS - Alerts]]>Sun, 04 Oct 2026 13:32:44 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[October 04th, 2026]]>Sun, 04 Oct 2026 18:43:09 GMThttps://www.motherlodetrails.org/alerts/october-04th-2026

For more than two decades, the Roadless Rule has protected much of our last remaining wild national forests—but now the U.S. Forest Service is planning to repeal the policy. One of the most significant conservation measures adopted to protect the national forests of the United States, the rule prohibits industrial logging and most roadbuilding within intact areas of our public forests while allowing for active management to mitigate fire risk, ensure community safety, and maintain healthy habitat.

We cannot afford to lose these protections for some of our last remaining intact public lands.
Join us to urge the Forest Service to uphold protections for roadless areas. The deadline to add your name is October 6, 2026.

CLICK HERE TO ADD YOUR NAME
https://act.audubon.org/a/save-roadless-areas-2026

]]><![CDATA[More than 10 percent of the PCT is at Risk of Losing Protection]]>Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:58:55 GMThttps://www.motherlodetrails.org/alerts/more-than-10-percent-of-the-pct-is-at-risk-of-losing-protection

From the PCT Trail Dirt:
"On the same day I returned home to Portland after hiking 126 days and 1,907 miles on the PCT, the Trump administration published its plan to repeal the Roadless Rule and end protections for many of the wild forests, pristine lakes, and vibrant ecosystems I had just passed through.

The administration is telling us that canceling Roadless Area protections will help combat wildfire. And anyone who has hiked on the PCT in recent years knows that fire is a serious threat. Many of us weren’t even able to finish our hikes this year because of the intense fires in Oregon and Washington.

But creating profit opportunities for the timber industry is not the answer.

Contrary to what the timber industry would want you to believe, logging forest lands doesn’t help prevent fires – in fact, it can makes it worse. Roads increase the likelihood of fires starting because they introduce humans into wild places, and most fires are human-caused. According to the Pacific Biodiversity Institute, 90% of all wildfires are started within a half-mile of a road.

If you love the PCT and agree that these wild places deserve continued protection, you can submit a comment in defense of the Roadless Rule to the U.S. Forest Service until October 6.

Visit the blog to read the full article by Selena Blick, an avid hiker, birder, environmental advocate, and lifelong Oregonian. Help us protect the PCT.

]]><![CDATA[Nevada County Supervisors Approve $261,884 in Funding for Four New Recreational Projects]]>Wed, 16 Sep 2026 18:25:48 GMThttps://www.motherlodetrails.org/alerts/nevada-county-supervisors-approve-261884-in-funding-for-four-new-recreational-projects

(Working on the HOOF Trail—Photo credit: Helen Crawford)
The funds have been growing since the County’s last significant allocation in 2015. Over the past month, Nevada County Board of Supervisors approved $261,884 to support four new recreation projects, including a new pocket park in Nevada City, a skate spot in Grass Valley, an equestrian trail off Highway 20 and a nature pavilion on Bear Yuba Land Trust’s Wildflower Ridge Preserve. Three projects were approved at the Board’s Aug. 25 meeting, with the Grass Valley skate spot approved today, Sept. 15.
The new round of funding comes from AB 1600 - the Mitigation Fee Act - a collection of development impact fees from new construction to support park and recreation capital projects benefiting residents throughout Nevada County.
Supporting recreation projects is part of a larger Board Objective for a Recreation Economy “to promote sustainable recreation in partnership with community providers and other jurisdictions.”
Four qualified applicants were received for this latest round of funding and include the following:

1. HOOF Trail: Gold Country Trails Council
The new round of funding will award Gold Country Trails Council (GCTC) $55,000 to build the 1.7-mile HOOF Trail in the Lone Grave and Harmony Ridge area for hikers and equestrians with an emphasis on reducing conflict and improving sustainable access.
With County funding, GCTC will have the resources needed to hire professional trail builders to construct the last two sections of the trail reviewed by Tahoe National Forest and install educational signage. GCTC has obtained a bid from Saxon Thomas of the HUSWEJ Stewardship Crew for construction of the remainder of the HOOF Trail.

“Comprised of many local Nisenan Tribe Members, their focus is on building a sustainable trail while honoring and respecting the land and surrounding ecological environment on which it is being built,” said Julie McManus, President of GCTC.

The new trail will allow equestrians and hikers a safer alternative to the Hoot Trail, popular among mountain bicyclists and a source of contention among different user groups in recent years. The new hiker and equestrian-friendly HOOF Trail will connect to the Pioneer Trail along Highway 20 and the future Pines to Mines Trail connecting Nevada City to Truckee.

"It’s going to be a beautiful trail, but the most important thing is that it will resolve the safety issue of horses and bikes from trying to negotiate a downhill flow trail. Everybody is on board to do this right from the outset," said McManus, President of GCTC. The HOOF Trail is expected to be rideable by next spring.

2. Pavilion at Wildflower Ridge:
Bear Yuba Land Trust will receive $40,000 to construct a hexagonal or octagonal timber-framed pavilion on the 128-acre Wildflower Ridge Preserve, located at 13167 Ridge Road, near Grass Valley.
The pavilion will provide a covered, ADA-accessible space where school groups, locals and visitors can connect with nature and gather for community activities.
The pavilion will provide a flexible setting for guided hikes, school field trips, environmental education, workshops, volunteer activities and community events.
BYLT will partner with the Timber Framers Guild of North America through a community-build model that brings together skilled craftspeople, local builders and volunteers.
“Investing in the Wildflower Ridge pavilion is an investment in our community’s connection to the outdoors. With the County’s support, we can build the infrastructure that will allow Wildflower Ridge to reach its full potential as a recreational and educational destination – serving local families and schools while creating opportunities for community events, outdoor learning and connection for generations to come,” said Executive Director Erin Tarr.

3. Centreville Skate Spot:
The City of Grass Valley was awarded $75,898 to create a new proposed 3,500-square-foot public “skate spot” known as the Centreville Bike Park – Skatepark Addition Project. The public skatepark facility within the new Centreville Bike Park will create “a space that encourages entry-level skill development, builds confidence and fosters a positive introduction to skateboarding,” according to a Board report.
The future skate spot will be located on the corner of Idaho-Maryland and Centreville Road.

4. North Pine Pocket Park:
The City of Nevada City will be awarded $90,986 for the North Pine Pocket Park Project. The project proposes to develop a new intergenerational, ADA-accessible, community-oriented pocket park on the City-owned .11-acre land adjacent to the Doris Foley Library for Historical Research at 211 North Pine Street.

About AB 1600 -The Recreation Mitigation Fee
The Recreation Mitigation Fee funds are intended for capital improvements, such as athletic fields, community buildings, community garden improvements, outdoor courts/gymnasium improvements, play areas, children’s playgrounds, land acquisition, performance stages, non-motorized trails, land, picnic areas and special use. Eligible entities include County, Cities, Non-Profit Organizations, and other Municipal Public Entities with recreation facilities open for general public use, within the three recreation benefit zones.

To see the complete press release from Nevada County, CLICK HERE.

]]><![CDATA[Tahoe Locals Are Fuming Over a Plan to Add Fees at Dozens of Recreation Sites]]>Fri, 28 Aug 2026 01:45:59 GMThttps://www.motherlodetrails.org/alerts/tahoe-locals-are-fuming-over-a-plan-to-add-fees-at-dozens-of-recreation-sites

From ActiveNorCal:
That free beach day at Tahoe might soon come with a price tag. The U.S. Forest Service is proposing new or increased recreation fees at roughly 40 sites around the Lake Tahoe Basin, and the plan is not going over well with the people who live there.

The NY Post reported that Tahoe locals are vehemently opposed to the proposal, which lands as the basin absorbs record crowds, rising parking fines and a summer of tension between residents and visitors. Long-free favorites like Kiva Beach and Taylor Creek are among the spots that would start charging for the first time.

The Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit is also teaming up with the Eldorado National Forest on higher overnight permit prices for Desolation Wilderness, one of the most heavily used wilderness areas in the country. Under that plan, per-person overnight fees would double from 5 to 10 dollars, then climb to 15 dollars by the fifth year, while the 20 dollar annual pass disappears entirely.

Nothing is final yet. A public comment period runs through September 29, with feedback accepted by mail, email and an online portal before a citizens advisory committee reviews the plan and sends a recommendation to the regional forester.

https://www.activenorcal.com/tahoe-locals-are-fuming-over-a-plan-to-add-fees-at-dozens-of-recreation-sites/

]]><![CDATA[National Parks Advocates Plan Day of Action Over Trump Policies firing 25% of Parks personnel]]>Fri, 21 Aug 2026 16:27:46 GMThttps://www.motherlodetrails.org/alerts/national-parks-advocates-plan-day-of-action-over-trump-policies-firing-25-of-parks-personnel

Article from Newsweek - Aug 19, 2026
NPCA says the National Park Service has lost a quarter of its permanent workforce over the past year, including thousands of rangers, maintenance workers and educators....

National parks advocates are planning a nationwide day of action against President Donald Trump’s parks agenda, calling on his administration to provide greater protection and investment for the federal workforce that maintains the country’s parks.

The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) said supporters will gather online and at events across the country on August 25 to “speak out for America’s national parks.” The group is asking the public to sign a petition urging Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to protect parks and their employees.

Its petition warns that staffing shortages have forced parks to reduce educational programs, weakened scientific and conservation work and could affect emergency responses and visitor safety. It asks Trump and Burgum to make a “real investment” in park staff and protect the people responsible for caring for the sites.

Although August 25 is the campaign’s focal point, NPCA has listed about 30 activities across 20 states and Washington, D.C., running from August 22 through September 1. Newsweek has mapped them out below.

The planned action comes amid a wider dispute over Trump’s approach to public lands. Critics have objected to staffing losses, higher fees for foreign visitors, the administration’s campaign to cut environmental regulations and its direction that federal historic sites remove material it considers disparaging or ideologically divisive.

The administration argues that its policies will expand recreational access, generate money for park infrastructure and balance conservation with economic growth. Burgum has said Trump is protecting the nation’s landscapes while ending “burdensome red tape.

What Is the Campaign Protesting?
The Day of Action campaign is mainly focused on the loss of National Park Service employees and what organizers describe as inadequate federal support for those who remain.

The NPCA says the shortages have forced parks to reduce educational programs, pushed out specialists responsible for research and conservation and raised concerns about whether employees can respond adequately to emergencies. Its petition asks Trump and Burgum to protect parks, preserve their workforce and provide staff with “real investment” to care for them.

The staffing dispute has unfolded alongside other Trump administration changes that have angered some visitors and conservation groups. The administration placed Trump’s image beside George Washington on the 2026 America the Beautiful annual pass.

The administration also introduced separate prices for residents and international visitors. U.S. residents continue to pay $80 for an annual pass, while nonresidents pay $250. International visitors without an annual pass must pay an additional $100 per person at 11 of the most-visited parks.

Trump has also directed the Interior Department to review monuments, signs and interpretive material at federal sites. His March 2025 executive order said parks and museums should emphasize American achievement and remove content the administration considers disparaging, ideologically driven or divisive.

It all comes against the backdrop of the administration’s wider approach to public lands and environmental regulation. Trump officials have promoted increased timber harvesting, expanded domestic energy production and faster permitting while promising to remove what they call burdensome environmental “red tape.”

GO HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION:
https://www.npca.org/campaigns/day-of-action-2026

CLICK HERE to see the original article in NEWSWEEK:
https://www.newsweek.com/national-parks-advocates-plan-day-of-protest-against-donald-trump-12343857

]]><![CDATA[USDA acts to remove roadless rule restrictions in place for 25 years to protect forests]]>Wed, 19 Aug 2026 02:12:58 GMThttps://www.motherlodetrails.org/alerts/usda-acts-to-remove-roadless-rule-restrictions-in-place-for-25-years-to-protect-forests

From SouthTahoeNow.com news:
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins has announced the U.S. Forest Service filed a proposed rule to rescind, in its entirety, the national 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Rollins said this one-size-fits-all restriction has frustrated land managers and served as a barrier to wildfire risk-reduction work across large swaths of America’s national forests.

“The administration’s attempt to blame the Roadless Rule for worsening wildfire risk ignores both the facts and the rule itself,” said Craven, as he said the Sierra Club will fight this change. “Roads generally lead to more ignitions and result in more wildfires – not fewer.

The Sierra Club and all others concerned with conservation of our public lands said the Roadless Rule was the only thing that prevented much of our wildest remaining national forests from industrial development.

The Roadless Rule allowed for the permanent conservation of millions of acres of wild national forest land. According to conservationists, by prohibiting new road construction and industrial timber harvesting, the policy successfully protected fragile wildlife habitats, preserved clean drinking water sources, and maintained pristine backcountry spaces for public recreation.

“For more than two decades, the Roadless Rule has protected the heart of our public lands, saved taxpayer dollars, and enjoyed overwhelming popularity with the general public,” said Alex Craven, Sierra Club Forest Campaign manager. “Once again, Donald Trump is showing he is eager to throw away a successful, commonsense policy while offering nothing but baseless justifications for doing so.”

The USDA, under Rollins’ leadership, says the 2001 Roadless Rule restricted road construction and limited the Forest Service’s ability to carry out critical active management work within inventoried roadless areas.
“Today, that includes more than 44 million acres of the 193-million-acre National Forest System. The rescission is intended to prioritize local agency decision-making over regulatory rules that are the same across the country, regardless of specific land management issues and needs,” the agency said in a press release Tuesday.
“This proposed rule is commonsense policy sought since the first Trump administration. In the years since, the need for it has only become more apparent,” said Deputy Secretary Stephen A. Vaden. “It is a credit to President Trump that we can begin to put into place a rule that will allow us to properly manage our national forests, because the first step to managing forests is to have access to them.”
“The Roadless Area Conservation Rule is the only thing preventing much of our wildest remaining national forests from industrial development. These forests offer critical habitat for wildlife; provide clean, fresh air and water for millions; and contain vast swaths of the last remaining old-growth forests in the country,” added Craven.”
The agency will seek public comment on the proposal and on a draft of the environmental impact statement filed today in the Federal Register. The rescission removes national designation of roadless areas but does not mandate timber cutting or road construction. The action removes regulatory burden and sends decisions about roadless areas to the local national forest managers.

“For 25 years, the heavy thumb of Washington D.C. has hindered Montana’s ability to properly manage wildfire risk and road development on nearly 60 percent of Forest Service land across the Treasure State,” Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte said. “Today’s long overdue decision will empower states like Montana to pursue proper forest management on federal lands with local communities in mind. I’m grateful to President Donald J. Trump and Secretary Rollins for their strong leadership in restoring common sense to active forest management.”

This proposed move reflects the administration’s removal of rules that have protected forests and kept them safe from timber harvesting. Allowing roads into the forest will give trucks more access. The rescission aligns with Executive Order 14192, Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation, Executive Order 14225, Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production, Executive Order 14154, Unleashing American Energy, and Executive Order 14153, Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential,
“The administration’s attempt to blame the Roadless Rule for worsening wildfire risk ignores both the facts and the rule itself,” said Craven, as he said the Sierra Club will fight this change. “Roads generally lead to more ignitions and result in more wildfires – not fewer. And, the Roadless Rule has always allowed for targeted actions to reduce hazardous fuels. What it does not allow is using wildfire as an excuse to open some of America’s most intact public forests to industrial exploitation and new road construction. Americans want and deserve forests managed for clean water, wildlife, recreation, and climate resilience—not another giveaway to extractive industries.”

More than 95 percent of inventoried roadless areas are in 10 Western states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. The proposed rule does not apply to national forests in Colorado and Idaho because those lands are under separate state-specific roadless regulations.
To comment on the proposed rule and draft environmental impact statement, go to Regulations.gov. Public comments must be received by midnight on Sept. 21. Information will be available Aug. 19 on the Forest Service Roadless Areas webpage.

To read the complete article in the SouthTahoeNOW.com. newspaper CLICK HERE:

]]><![CDATA[Talbot Fire Closes WST and PCT trails at French Meadows Through December 31]]>Mon, 17 Aug 2026 18:46:50 GMThttps://www.motherlodetrails.org/alerts/talbot-fire-closes-wst-and-pct-trails-at-french-meadows-through-december-31

Closure window: August 14 through December 31, 2026 under Forest Order 17-26-21.
Where: French Meadows roads, trails, and recreation sites on Tahoe National Forest.
Trail hits: Western States Trail segment and PCT between 9001 Road and Barker Pass.
Fire status Aug 16: About 93 acres and 75 percent contained; evacuations lifted.
Traveler move: Cancel French Meadows camp plans and recheck forest alerts before driving.

French Meadows recreation is closed for the rest of 2026. Tahoe National Forest Order 17-26-21 blocks roads, trails, and recreation sites in the Talbot Fire Closure Area from 9:00 a.m. PDT on August 14 through December 31.

Firefighters are still pushing the blaze toward full containment, but that progress does not reopen the ordered recreation corridor.

Campers, hikers, and through-hikers planning Truckee or Tahoe trips must reroute now. The order still covers French Meadows area access, a named stretch of the Western States Trail, and a Pacific Crest Trail segment between Placer County 9001 Road and Barker Pass, while Granite Chief Wilderness remains open outside the closed corridor.

What Forest Order 17-26-21 actually closes
The Tahoe National Forest Talbot Fire closure alert is a hard land order, not a soft advisory. It bans going onto National Forest System lands inside the mapped Talbot Fire Closure Area, using closed roads or trails there, and entering closed recreation sites through December 31, 2026.

Forest Service language is specific about trail corridors. The Western States Trail is closed from Forest Road 96-62 to the Granite Chief Wilderness boundary.
The Pacific Crest Trail (Trail No. 2000) is closed between the PCT trailhead on Placer County 9001 Road and Barker Pass Trailhead.

The order took effect at 9:00 a.m. PDT on August 14, 2026, and was executed in Nevada City that morning. Violations can draw federal fines and short jail terms under the statutes cited in the order.
Treat closed gates and barricades as non-negotiable for recreational visitors.
Private land owners and lessees keep limited access only as needed to reach their land. Firefighters, rescue crews, and people with a written Forest Service exemption permit are also carved out.
Ordinary campers, day hikers, and PCT hikers are not exempt.
How the Talbot Fire status changed by August 16The fire started the afternoon of August 12, 2026, near French Meadows Road about 14 miles southwest of Truckee in Placer County. Early mapping swung as crews refined the perimeter, and by Sunday morning CAL FIRE listed the incident at about 93 acres after a field observer remeasured burned ground.
Containment climbed quickly once air and ground resources surrounded the footprint. The CAL FIRE Talbot Fire incident page showed 75 percent containment on August 16, with mop-up, hazard-tree work, and a planned handoff back to Tahoe National Forest as the threat eased.

Evacuation warnings tied to the fire were lifted by August 15 and 16 updates. That is good news for nearby communities, but it does not reopen French Meadows recreation.
Forest closures often outlast the emergency phase because of burned timber, unstable slopes, and damaged access routes.

Unified command listed USFS Tahoe National Forest and CAL FIRE Nevada-Yuba-Placer Unit as agencies with jurisdiction. Sacramento Regional Team 3 managed the incident before the planned return of local forest command, which is a normal step once a fire is largely held.

What still sits behind closed gates
French Meadows is a high-country recreation pocket, not a single trailhead kiosk. When the forest order closes the area roads, trails, and recreation sites, overnight campgrounds, day-use shoreline access, and the connecting forest road network that feeds those sites all drop out of the summer and fall plan.

Through-hikers feel the order in a different way. A closed PCT segment between the 9001 Road trailhead and Barker Pass forces a long detour or a schedule change for anyone who expected a continuous north-south walk across that Tahoe National Forest stretch.
Western States Trail users face a similar break. The closed piece from Forest Road 96-62 to the wilderness boundary is not a tiny spur. It is a named corridor that recreational runners, equestrians, and multi-day trail users often treat as part of a larger Tahoe-to-Western States network.

Granite Chief Wilderness itself remains open under current public messaging, which matters for people who can reach wilderness entries without crossing the closed French Meadows road and trail web. Still, entry planning has to avoid the ordered area rather than assume every wilderness approach stays convenient.

For the full article and photos in the Deep Arrival News, CLICK HERE.

]]><![CDATA[Hey, California fourth graders – there’s a FREE State Parks pass just for you!]]>Sat, 15 Aug 2026 01:27:38 GMThttps://www.motherlodetrails.org/alerts/hey-california-fourth-graders-theres-a-free-state-parks-pass-just-for-you

What? California State Parks’ Free Fourth Grade Pass provides free entry for fourth graders and their families at 54 amazing state parks throughout the state as part of the Outdoors for All Initiative. Get your free pass today at ReserveCalifornia.com!

Who? You (a fourth grader from California attending a public school), your family (up to three adults and other kids) and friends (everyone in your car) can enjoy all sorts of adventures at 54 state parks from the August when you start fourth grade until August 31 of the following year.

How? To get your free pass, have your parent or guardian go to ReserveCalifornia.com (account required). All they have to do is set up a profile by providing their name, address, phone number and email address, and we will send them your Free Fourth Grade Pass to their email right away!

Where? Once you have received your Free Fourth Grade Pass you can use it by either printing it out or keeping it on your phone to show a uniformed State Parks staffer at one of these 54 state parks.

Get your free pass today at ReserveCalifornia.com!

Other Free Passes

]]><![CDATA[Expand Empire Mine trails! Donate to BYLT for Cedar Ridge Preserve.]]>Thu, 13 Aug 2026 20:30:49 GMThttps://www.motherlodetrails.org/alerts/expand-empire-mine-trails-donate-to-bylt-for-cedar-ridge-preserve

Some opportunities only come around once.
Just minutes from downtown lies one of the last large undeveloped landscapes within Grass Valley—a remarkable 137-acre property in Cedar Ridge, next to Empire Mine State Park. Towering oaks, mixed-conifer forest, more than half a mile of the South Fork of Wolf Creek, and nearly three miles of beloved trails have quietly served as a place where people walk, ride, watch birds, and reconnect with nature.
Today, that place stands at a crossroads.
The property is currently on the market. While the sellers have long supported conservation, they are actively considering development proposals, and another buyer is prepared to make an offer if we don’t act soon.
Our community is stepping up.The response has been remarkable.
Together, community members have now pledged more than $600,000 toward protecting this special place.
That milestone demonstrates something powerful: our community believes Cedar Ridge is worth protecting.
Pledge your support to this effort by August 25 to ensure BYLT can act quickly to purchase this property and permanently protect it.

I can make a financial pledge to protect Cedar Ridge

Questions about the project or making a pledge? Contact:
Erin Tarr, BYLT Executive Director
(530) 272-5994 ext. 205
erin@bylt.org

Note: this effort is to permanently protect 137-acres adjacent to Empire Mine State Park.
BYLT is soliciting pledges to ensure community support before making an offer on the property. Once the offer is accepted, BYLT will follow up with you to make your tax-deductible donation to protect the property. We anticipate this will be in the next few months.

https://www.bylt.org/protect-cedar-ridge/

]]><![CDATA[The ticks are winning. It doesn’t have to be that way.]]>Sun, 02 Aug 2026 16:36:04 GMThttps://www.motherlodetrails.org/alerts/the-ticks-are-winning-it-doesnt-have-to-be-that-way

Ticks are taking over the United States. Due to climate change, changing land use, and an explosion in the deer population, ticks have been expanding their territory and infecting more people than ever. They carry pathogens that cause everything from Lyme disease to the red meat allergy-inducing Alpha gal syndrome. In some cases, tick bites can be fatal.

Ticks usually lurk in the tall grass in wooded areas. That means going on a hike or even just hanging out in your backyard or a park can expose you to a tick bite. In many parts, of the country fear of ticks is changing how people live their lives, including the way they dress, how they enjoy their hobbies, or even whether they spend much outdoors at all.

The tick surge is catching public health officials off guard. Emergency room visits due to tick bites are the highest they’ve been since 2017. In spite of the uptick, most public health departments still focus on lowering the population of mosquitos in their areas over ticks.

Climate reporter Jonthan Mingle says we can fix this problem. As Mingle explained in a recent New York Times op-ed, encouraging the public to do tick checks and use bug spray is a part of the solution, but we’re leaving a bunch of larger interventions on the table. Mingle joined Today, Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram to explain why ticks are expanding their range and what we can do about it.

Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.

You know some experts I talked to used the word exponential. So what’s happening is that some of these tick species are spreading into areas where people aren’t familiar with them, doctors aren’t familiar with them. Thanks to warmer winters, ticks are expanding their hunting season. You may have a day that’s like 40 degrees in January, ticks are out looking for you, waiting for you to walk by and grab on and grab a meal.

In 2024, a pilot named Brian Weitzel, father of three in northern New Jersey, had a hamburger, at a barbecue, went home to mow his lawn, and a few hours later was unresponsive on the floor and he died that night. His family was left in shock, of course, trying to figure out why he had died. And it turned out that he had likely been bitten by the lone star tick and had developed an allergy to red meat. This is referred to as Alpha-gal syndrome, which is just the latest entrant into the files of all the many ways in which tick bites can make us sick. The most familiar one, of course, is Lyme disease. Each year, about half a million people are treated for Lyme disease. It’s the fastest growing vector-borne disease in the US. Cases have more than doubled over the past decade, and those cases are mostly as a result of getting bitten by the black-legged tick or the deer tick. The thing is both of these ticks — and many other ticks that are also marching northward and westward and expanding their empires rapidly across North America — they can deliver all kinds of pathogens.

They’re claiming more and more of the map, and they’re claiming more and more of our psychic map right? I tell people I’m not a tick expert, although I’ve talked to a bunch of them, but I’ve become a tick expert in the sense that I am very familiar with tick paranoia and how it can keep you from venturing out into the places you love: hiking paths or picnic grounds or parks. And so that was part of the story I wanted to write about, too — Why are we letting the ticks keep us, if not out of these places that we need and love, why aren’t we fighting back?
Related

Ticks are spreading Lyme disease across America, but we can beat them. Here’s how. A universal tick vaccine!

And why is it? Are we not fighting back against the ticks?
Not really. I mean, this is one of the surprising takeaways from my reporting is that we’re barely even trying. One way of understanding that is to think about two numbers. One number is 90 percent. 90 percent of vector-borne disease cases in the US are from ticks.

Ninety percent?
Yeah. And yet despite the fact that 90 percent of cases of vector-borne illness come from tick bites, if you look at what local city, county health agencies do in terms of vector control, 80 percent of what they do is mosquito control, and only about 10 or 11 percent of these local health agencies around the country do any kind of tick control. So why is that? It’s a familiar story in the public health world. It’s not enough funding or policy support for trying out, testing, deploying new approaches to controlling ticks.

Even though people are dying?
We’re just kind of taking for granted that, “Oh, well, what can you do? You just tuck your pants in and spray some insecticide on your boots and that’s all you can do.” It’s like, “Well, actually we have a long history of going to war with mosquitoes.” Before there was tick control, there was mosquito control. The CDC was founded with the sole mandate in 1946 of wiping out malaria and fighting mosquitoes.
It feels like they lost that fight because in my neighborhood you can’t go out between the hours of seven and nine o’clock.
The mosquitoes haven’t gone away, but malaria did for the most part. You know, in talking to experts today, including folks at the CDC, they told me that there’s a suite of tools we could be using if we wanted to get serious about fighting ticks. As one veteran tick expert at the CDC told me, if you want to make a dent in this problem, you have to get to the deer. The deer are the engine driving a lot of these tick species spreading, and we just have way more deer than we did decades ago, especially in the eastern US and suburban parts of America. So how do you get to the deer? I had people in the comments section of my piece saying the clear answer is just we should all be hunting deer. But in talking to the experts, they’ll tell you it’s not really a feasible solution. You would have to knock deer populations way down to make a dent in the tick populations.
What is more promising is a combined approach of stuff like vaccines. There are people developing vaccines that you could deliver to deer or to rodents, which are another important host for these ticks so that when the tick bites them, they’ll die. That, I learned from talking to folks who do this kind of research for a living, is a more promising avenue for controlling ticks than all of us picking up crossbows and becoming deer hunters.
Related

Why we don’t actually want a world without mosquitoes

So why is it that we’re not doing anything?
What I heard from experts is that we’re not even funding this research in a serious way. We do this stuff for mosquitoes. People don’t realize it, but your local county health agency, they go out and they find where the mosquito breeding grounds are and stagnant pools the water and they treat it. It takes this sustained quiet effort.

We saw the consequences of not doing that recently. This is a bit tangential, but screwworm. Screwworm was this flesh eating larval pest that devastates cattle herds that it was eradicated in the US in 1966, and it was kept at bay by the vigilance of people at USDA and USAID who ran these programs to release millions of sterile screwworm males out of airplanes. It created this wall that kept the screwworm from coming into the southern US. And probably if we stopped doing the mosquito control at a local scale, we’d see more cases of dengue fever, West Nile virus, and all these other rare but serious illnesses that climate change is making more of a threat here in the US.

Could you just practically help people understand how they can protect themselves in the absence of, I don’t know, a functional government?
Doing tick checks. And we do it in my household pretty much daily when you come home, do a thorough tick check, throw your clothes in the dryer. Ticks hate heat. And some people like to use permethrin spray, which is this insecticide that’s designed to kill ticks on your boots or your pants when you go out for a hike. Researchers have known these things are really effective if you keep doing them, if you stay vigilant. And all it takes is that one time, that one time you go out for a hike and you come back and you forget to do the tick check.

So we need those kinds of personal measures of vigilance and protection, but we still need to kind of push for a bigger public health response to this. The ticks are going to keep spreading into the calendar, too, in the sense that as winters get warmer, more and more days of the year when you’re outdoors, you’re going to encounter ticks who are hungry, and they’re looking for you.

CLI CK HERE to see complete article and photos in VOX magazine.

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