Sorry, folks.
It turns out that all this snow isn’t, in fact, killing off the blasted ticks.
Various scholarly studies — which we have skimmed so you don’t have to — agree. There is a study by Volk et al. (2022) that determined that pathogen-bearing black-legged ticks were perfectly cozy overwintering under the snowpack in northern Maine. There is Burtis, et al., in the Journal of Medical Entomology (2016), which indicated that, no, snow cover does not impact ticks’ winter survival rates — the diversity and abundance of predators does. Another study, Linske, et al., does tell us that bitter cold over an extended period can boost the winter death rate of ticks, but, sadly, not if they are cuddled up snugly under the snow!
The takeaway from these scientific findings is depressing, frankly. The broad decline in biodiversity in the Mid-Atlantic region is what’s behind our booming tick populations in recent decades, not altered weather patterns and years of mild winters.
Think of the nursery rhyme “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly” and you’ll get the picture: She swallowed a dog to catch the cat, to catch the bird, to catch the spider, to catch the fly.
According to the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, a complex feeding chain of predators is needed to keep tick populations down, and we on Long Island have lost a broad range of such predators, from raptors to wolves, that eat things that eat ticks. We have too many mice and deer, upon which the ticks themselves dine — because we have too few bobcats, grey foxes, coyotes, opossums, barn owls, and harrier hawks.