Taking Aim at the Island’s Tick Problem
Tick-borne illnesses are severely impacting life on Martha’s Vineyard, with diseases like Lyme and the rapidly rising alpha-gal syndrome becoming widespread and even changing daily habits and community life.
In response, a new nonprofit called Tick Free MV has launched to reduce the island’s tick population and improve public health. Their main strategy focuses on lowering the deer population, since deer are the primary hosts that allow ticks to reproduce.
The Vineyard has extremely high rates of tick-borne diseases, far exceeding state averages, and cases of alpha-gal have surged dramatically in recent years, highlighting the urgency of the problem.