Forestry Expert's Tick Prevention Tips - TPR's In Focus - August 20, 2026

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From Troy Public Radio, this is In
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Focus, and I'm Carolyn Hutcheson. If you enjoy what
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the outdoors offers you, be on the lookout for what comes
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with it— ticks. Registered forester Greg
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Brewer shares his tips for navigating nature
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without ticks hitching a ride. He joins
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us from the Alabama Forestry Commission, where he serves as Safety and
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Training Director.
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Greg Brewer, welcome to Troy Public Radio. Well,
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thank you. Thanks for having me on today. Greg, you are
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in the woods a lot. How do you protect yourself
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from ticks? There's several different ways, but wearing bug spray,
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making sure that when you go outside, you wear bug spray and then checking
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yourself as soon as you get back home or when you can within
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24 hours. You definitely want to do a tick check on yourself.
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That's one of the best ways to kind of avoid any issues there.
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But wearing bug spray is probably the number one thing.
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And how do you remove a tick from your
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skin? I keep a tick key in my vehicle.
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That way, if I see a tick on me or even that evening, I have
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one at the house as well. That helps remove the tick without allowing
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all the stuff inside the tick to be squeezed back in the body
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like you would if you had a pair of tweezers. So I use a tick
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key and they're a little key that helps remove the tick without
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leaving the tick embedded. I try not to use tweezers or
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needle-nose pliers to squeeze the tick. I want to remove the
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entire tick including the head. So those tick keys are sure helpful.
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You'll find them. You can definitely Google them and find them. They're not very
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expensive at all. Greg, I want to call the listeners' attention
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to a terrific article that you wrote in Alabama's
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Treasured Forest magazine. This is issue number 3
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of this year. Your article is entitled Ticks: What to Know,
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and you introduced us to a number of ticks I was
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not aware of. So how vulnerable are we in this
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region? We're definitely vulnerable, and one of the main
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goals of the article was to just bring awareness to ticks in
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Alabama and some of the diseases that they can carry and that their population
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density is kind of increasing. But there's several different
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types. Lone Star tick, the brown dog tick, the deer
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tick, the American dog tick, very common in Alabama.
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And just want to make sure that people wear bug spray and stay safe
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as they're out moving in the woods. I noticed that according to
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the map that you had in this article, deer ticks— found out
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they carry Lyme disease. American dog ticks carry Rocky
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Mountain spotted fever. Some of these things carry diseases I can't
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even pronounce. Yes, they do. And their
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life cycle, some of them have a 3-host
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life cycle. So they'll actually embed themselves into 3
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different animals during their life, and one of them could be you. So you're kind
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of getting some of the diseases from other animals, and that's the biggest danger,
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get some of those diseases. So when you're in the outdoors,
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what kind of clothing helps? If I'm in the outdoors, I always
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wear long pants. So, if you walk through some tall grass or
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in the leaves or litter layer of the forest, maybe a tick
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gets on your pants and you can see them and get them off pretty quickly
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as compared to if you were wearing shorts, they would get on your leg and
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then you have a chance of it biting you. So, I love to
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make sure that folks know to wear long pants. Boots are
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also very helpful compared to, you know, flip-flops or something
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of the sort. And then long-sleeve shirts if you can,
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although it's pretty hot in Alabama, so I want to avoid getting overheated,
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but definitely long pants and long-sleeve shirts. Greg, in your
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research, did you find that ticks here in the South are
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confined to a certain season, or can we be vulnerable
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year-round? So ticks really thrive on
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warmer climates and higher humidity.
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Alabama has both. High humidity and warm climates,
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and our winters are fairly mild. They still can be active
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during our winter months because they're not that cold compared to the northern states,
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but they're definitely subdued, meaning they don't move around
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as much. So the spring, they're very active. They're looking for a
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new host as they've molted from one part of their life cycle to the next.
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And then during the summer months, they're also looking for that other host. In the
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winter, they tend to die down as far as their activity, but they still can
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be found on you. So wearing bug spray really every time you go into the
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woods is the best practice. Everyone knows that Alabama has a lot
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of white-tailed deer, and you pointed out in this article that they
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are one of the hosts. Yes. So typically, if you look at the life cycle
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of a tick, the first host usually is a small rodent,
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a squirrel or a mouse or something like that. And then,
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as they progress through their life cycle, which could be 3 years,
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one of their last hosts can be a deer. A larger mammal
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is what they're kind of looking for. Greg, the expansion of urban
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development into traditionally wooded area,
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is this a factor in this tick explosion?
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Sure, I definitely say it would be. As our urban sprawl,
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our homes are moving towards the forested area, we're going to
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come in contact with other things in the forest. From animals that
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live in the forest to insects, and ticks are one of those.
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So, we definitely, as the population in the state
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increases, homes increase, and we're pushing our cities out into the
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forested areas that traditionally didn't have any homes, then we're going to
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come into all the things that the forests have, from invasive
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species to animals to insects like these ticks. So,
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definitely would see an increase in that.
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Another thing he pointed out in the article is that pets
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can bring in ticks. Ticks carry serious
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diseases. So what about pets? Do you have a
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pet? Do you have to treat it? Yes, I've got several. We have a small
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farm at home, but we do have to treat our pets,
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especially if you live on the edge of the city and you
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have different animals coming in and out of your home or moving through
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your area. You definitely want to make sure that you protect your
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pets from ticks and fleas and other diseases or other insects. Having some
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sort of tick protection is a great thing. And also another thing that
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folks can do is just keep their grass mowed. Grass cut short also
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helps prevent some of the number of ticks in their area. A lot
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of our listeners are gardeners. What do you know about gardening
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and ticks? Are there certain things the ticks are attracted to?
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I'm not an entomologist, but I do think that Ticks can be in
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a garden just like they can be in shrubs. They can be in wood piles.
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They can be in leaf piles. They can be in our trees or grass.
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They can live in gardens just like they could in our forest or in tall
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grass. Anybody that goes out and spends some time outdoors
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needs to be mindful of ticks and other different insects that could be
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out there. So wearing some bug spray, even if you're gardening or taking a hike
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through the woods or moving a wood pile or raking leaves,
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I think that's important to do. Greg, a lot of our listeners
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are birders. They love to get out in nature and look at
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birds and so forth. Do birds carry ticks? There are several different
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types of ticks that do make birds one of their hosts.
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If you look at the life cycle of a tick, again, they need to have
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2 to 3 blood meals is what they call them over
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a course of 2 to 3 years. And one of those can be at
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the very earliest stage of a tick's life cycle can be a bird.
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And the bird can, as they migrate from one part of the state
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to the other, they can bring those ticks from one part to the other.
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Sure can. With all of your experience as a registered
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forester, often in the field among these things,
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is there any final advice you'd like to share with the
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listeners? Yeah, I just want to make sure that when folks go outside,
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they're first knowledgeable about ticks and that they wear
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bug spray, that they check themselves every time,
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not just once or twice or, oh, I'll get to that, but they check themselves
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when they get home that evening to make sure that they don't have a tick.
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They also treat their pets and make sure that they have the adequate bug
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protection as well. You've given us new information,
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Greg, and I want to thank you for your interview today. Thank you
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for having me. That was registered forester Greg Brewer,
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Safety and Training Director of the Alabama Forestry Commission.
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His article, Ticks: What to Know,
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appeared in issue number 3, 2026 of
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Alabama's Treasured Forest magazine.
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Thanks for joining us for In Focus, which is a podcast
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wherever you get your podcasts. And feel free to get in touch at
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infocus@troy.edu. I'm Carolyn
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Hutcheson, and this is listener-supported Troy Public
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Radio.