Mammalian meat. Barbed mouthparts. Sloughing skin. Six thousand larvae seeking blood meal. Concrete-like saliva. Suicide.
These were just some of the words and terms bandied about during a presentation about tick-borne diseases by the East Hampton Town Board’s tick action committee this week.
And while you won’t see those words in a Hamptons real estate advertisement, like it or not they’re as much a part of the Hamptons as a Range Rover driven by a man in white trousers with shiny teeth. Part of the mission of the committee is to make sure visitors know that.
“I couldn’t even twist a doorknob to open a door,” said Dick Monahan, the chairman of the tick action committee, recounting his bout with Lyme disease. In an odd twist, the ailment was knocked out of his system by a high-potency antibiotic he was taking for an unrelated appendix issue. “I was one of the fortunate ones,” he said.
Tick activity is present on the East End year round, peaking around Memorial Day, when nymph lone star and black-legged (deer) ticks are most active, and again in August and September, when their larva hatch.
Don’t be fooled by the snow-covered grounds of winter 2026, either. Ticks thrive with moisture.
“With the snow finally melting, yesterday was such a beautiful day. I took my dog for a walk in the woods for the first time this year — and he came back with two ticks,” said Councilman Ian Calder-Piedmonte.
The East End has among the highest incidences of tick-borne diseases in the entire state, and they come in many flavors: Lyme, ehrlichiosis, anaplasmosis, babesiosis. The alpha-gal meat allergy also comes from the bite of a lone star tick, and in severe cases, when left undetected, can cause death from anaphylaxis.
The goal of the tick committee is to reduce the risk of disease while respecting East Hampton’s environment. Much of the conversation at Tuesday’s meeting centered around the ticks’ main host (and the cause for their exponential growth) — the white-tailed deer.
“Deer-targeted interventions yield the greatest reductions in tick populations and tick-borne disease,” said Councilman Tom Flight, the town board’s liaison to the committee, noting that there is a 76-percent reduction in tick abundance after deer density management.
According to a slide in the committee’s presentation, the U.S. Center for Disease Control recognizes deer as “the primary driver of the dramatic increase in black-legged tick populations across the northeastern U.S. over the past 40 years.”
“I just want to make clear there are no plans to eradicate the deer,” said Councilman Flight, adding, however, that it is up to the town board to determine “what a healthy deer population is in this town.” Over 500 vehicles collided with deer on local roads last year.
Councilwoman Cate Rogers also noted the role deer play in deforestation, a huge, if silent, issue plaguing our woodlands.
“We have to find the right balance,” said Mr. Flight.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be death to the deer. Some municipalities, including North Haven Village, have had great success with what’s known as the 4-poster program, a targeted control method that includes strategically spaced deer-feeding stations baited with corn. Deer that stop to feed are coated with permethrin from rollers, which kills adult black-legged ticks and all stages of the lone star tick.
Claas Abraham, the deputy mayor of North Haven, said this week that tick drags show a 95-percent reduction of black-legged ticks and an 85 to 90-percent reduction in lone star ticks in the four years the village has had “full deployment” of the stations.
“The four-poster system is a targeted way of delivering acaricide,” said Dr. Joshua Stillman, a member of the tick committee, “and there is very little environmental impact to other insects. I’m under the impression that the four-poster is good at preventing widespread application of pesticides.”
The tick stations are expensive, however, and would require clearing some bureaucratic hurdles with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. Ironically, the D.E.C. has rather strict rules about deploying the stations, despite the fact that residents routinely spray all manner of pesticides on their properties, many of which routinely kill beneficial insects and coat the waters of swimming pools.
“I see people spraying their properties weekly,” said Ms. Rogers. “That’s ineffective and gives people a false sense of security.”
The best advice for preventing tick bites? Use a permethrin-based repellent on clothing, especially shoes, socks, and the lower part of pants (ticks come from below; they do not hang out high in bushes or drop down from trees), and do frequent tick checks. Most diseases take many hours to transmit from the tick to a human.
Understand tick habitat. Leash dogs on trails and check them before you get back in the car; ticks are more prevalent in the moist leaf litter off the trailsides. When you come in from the outdoors, put clothing directly in the dryer to desiccate any crawling ticks.
Dr. Scott Campbell, a committee member who is from an arthropod-borne disease laboratory, said that people should check themselves every 15 to 20 minutes when outside in tick territory.
“That night, check yourself well,” he said. “Oftentimes, the ticks will be in areas you can’t see. Use mirrors. I suggest doing a tick check the following morning as well. If you miss a tick, they will start to attach overnight. That little tick now is bigger, and the redness around the attachment site will draw your eye to it. Basically, you want to do a tick check when you brush your teeth at night and again when you brush your teeth in the morning.”
In six to eight weeks, after meeting with the town’s wildlife management advisory committee, the tick advisory committee will come back to the town board, Mr. Flight said, with concrete recommendations for action. He also noted that Tuesday’s presentation will be translated into Spanish.
