A team of researchers next week will start hitting the Lehigh Valley's public parks, where they will slowly drag a square meter of white corduroy through trees and brush.
They'll be trawling for ticks, which will hop on the textured cloth as it moves across woodlands.
"They think they're on an animal, but they're very disappointed because we collect them and put them in a bottle of alcohol," said Marten Edwards, a professor of biology at Muhlenberg College.
Edwards is involved in a Lehigh Valley research project that aims to learn more about local tick populations and Lyme disease, a bacterial infection that, if untreated, can lead to neurological and cardiac problems, as well as arthritis symptoms.
The multiyear study is a collaboration between Penn State Extension, Muhlenberg College and the Lehigh Valley Health Network. Edwards and student researchers will get out in the woods starting Monday and into July to record their findings during peak tick season.
He and his students each summer try to get out to a different, public, forested area within the Lehigh Valley every day that it's not raining. Most sites they check are within Lehigh County.
Louise Bugbee, the West Nile virus coordinator for Lehigh County Penn State Cooperative Extension, is coordinating the project. She said sometimes a 10-minute tick drag can yield 15 ticks, while other times a 40-minute drag can yield one.
Once they're collected, the ticks are crushed and DNA is extracted, including DNA from bacteria that cause Lyme disease, Edwards said.
Researchers have learned over the study's four years that about 20 percent of ticks in the area carry Lyme disease. They have no timetable for how long the study will last, but are hoping the effort will help formulate a game plan for stemming the spread of the disease.
"In the long run, I think this has to do in a way with prevention, because if we found Lyme disease and tick-related infections are high enough in a certain area, … public health preventative efforts may be warranted," said Dr. Jaan Naktin, who's part of the study and the practice leader for Lehigh Valley Physicians Group Infectious Diseases.
Overall, the public knows little about ticks, according to Thomas Mather, a professor of public health entomology at the University of Rhode Island and director of the TickEncounter Resource Center, an organization that promotes education about ticks and performs a crowd-sourced tick survey.
Mather said many people see something that resembles a tick and quickly throws it away in a panic. But they should look at the tick and determine whether it's a blacklegged deer tick, which carries Lyme disease, or another type of tick that's less likely to be dangerous.
"In your neck of the woods, the most common tick people are encountering are American dog ticks," Mather said. "Those really don't make people very sick."
Mather said it's too early to know exactly what type of tick season this summer will be. Deer ticks thrive in humidity and dry up if there's little moisture.
Ticks start out as larvae in the summertime and initially feed mostly on mice, which is where they pick up the bacteria that cause Lyme disease. Then they reach the nymph stage the following spring and could start to feed on humans.
Edwards said nymph-stage ticks will be out and biting in the next few weeks, but any ticks out right now are probably adults.
"The nymphs are really the most dangerous ticks, because they're about the size of a poppy seed," he said. "They often bite in inconspicuous places and people often don't know they've been bitten by a tick."
Lyme disease often comes with a characteristic bull's-eye-shaped rash that rings the site of the bite. A victim might also first notice flu-like symptoms.
The disease can be easily treated with an antibiotic if it's caught early. But let it go on too long and more serious and persistent health problems can emerge.
Researchers advise anyone who goes outdoors, especially if they stray off paths into the woods, to stay vigilant against ticks. Edwards recommends checking yourself and showering after being in areas where ticks might be.
Experts said the best way to remove a tick is to grab it where the head meets the skin and pull it out with a pair of very fine forceps. It takes about 24 hours for the bacteria to be transmitted from ticks to humans.
Ticks tend to crawl up the body until they're stopped and can often be found in the groin area, by waistbands, behind knees or on backs.
Experts said the best way to avoid getting bitten by ticks is to wear clothing treated with tick repellent.
They also advise staying in the middle of a path in the woods—it's dryer than off-path areas—and creating a buffer between a home and woods so ticks will stay in the woods instead of the hot, open spaces of a yard.