The Tests of Tick Hunting
Imagine a young female, feeling weak from nausea, alone on the savanna. She’s got a keen eye as she quietly hunts, not for any meal, but specifically for blood-sucking parasites that are already covering her. No matter how much she’s second-guessing this predicament, she has finally settled on not letting anything stop her. It’s all for her science.
I’ve learned that if someone is truly passionate about a cause, any stipulation it requires they will meet, no matter what. This is what my experience at Kapiti Ranch taught me, and I am beyond grateful to have undergone that journey for myself.
Back at home, all in my college essays, and to friends or family who wanted to know my career passions, I would blabber on and on about the importance of conservation medicine, or One Health. If the environment suffers, if the animals get sick, humans in those areas suffer as well; as the concepts are still emerging, I wanted to find the link to it. The key, I believed, to ending hunger was this complex link of health. Before any person can work to sustain themselves, before any person can work to sustain others, their health has to be prime. As life ironically showed me, I played a factor of this as well as I swayed, on the verge of getting sick, in the savanna, trying to suppress a panic attack because my leg was black with ticks I needed to sample.
I’ve always been terrified of not only insects, but anything, as I would say, “small and crawling”. I understood these bug-like creatures, of course, played significant medical and agricultural roles. Bees pollinate, mosquitoes spread diseases, spiders keep down insect populations, beetles and other insects provide food for important wildlife and some livestock. Yet that was a side of agriculture and medicine I, simply, would have never wanted to delve in. That just wasn’t my niche; that job could go to someone else. My fear of those things, initially, were not just extreme discomfort; only several years before, I would freeze and sometimes even cry at the thought of having to touch an insect. Working as a wildlife rehabilitator, where bugs were needed as food, actually significantly helped my fear of them. I grew from squirming at a bin filled with mealworms to using my hand to separate adult beetles, or from using a spoon to scoop out larvae to even picking them out with my bare fingers. At least, though, these were tiny, visible insects who weren’t trying to eat me. Therefore, I felt as if I’d been sent back to square one when our supervisor offered me a project working with ticks! Blood-sucking, disease-carrying, spider-looking parasites. From my understanding, I would only be collecting ticks off animals and examining them for diseases. In theory and in words, that didn’t sound too bad. I would have complete control of the ticks I see, and where they go. They’d live in a laboratory setting, completely safe. And since ticks I learned played significant roles in One Health, as they can transmit diseases from wildlife, to livestock, to humans, I agreed.
Researching the ticks, or examining dead ones, was fine. A tick picture, or a dead tick, couldn’t crawl on me. Of course, what I learned, how the ticks secrete a cement-like substance to hold in place while biting; how they, to control their water levels, return their saliva to the host’s bloodstream (thus transmitting a disease); how females will engorge themselves until they’re significantly bigger, was absolutely terrifying…and made the thought of getting bit by one even more heart-stopping.
This week, to continue our tick-based projects, we stayed in Kapiti Ranch, which is a large land owned by ILRI, filled with farms and wildlife. As we got closer to our trip there, we heard more and more stories. Kapiti was a beautiful place, but we learned that ticks were everywhere. Brush against grass and you’re sure to go home with some. I felt my stomach lurch at that thought, but I willed myself to be brave. No matter what, I could — would — had to — do a good job. This was to help livestock farmers, wildlife, humans; the job was too important to keep afraid. As long as I was of a steady mind, I could handle it. Unfortunately, that was far easier said than done.
Then the day came. About 2 hours after I woke up, I became incredibly nauseous. I heard of an intern getting similarly sick the previous year, as she was on her way to the exact same place, and wondered if this was either something pitifully inconveniently psychosomatic or some odd curse I never learned of. However, I didn’t feel debilitated, just queasy, and hoped I’d feel better after our hour-long car drive.
I actually did feel better after the ride. We arrived at the ranch, and I soon realized the people were right. Kapiti Ranch was absolutely gorgeous. Fresh grasslands stretched to distant ridges, and were filled with zebra, antelope, ostriches, wildebeest and other wildlife. I was overwhelmed by that rushed, childish feeling of being in the wild savanna, feeling the air shared by unreal wildlife blow against my face. This was a nature lover’s dream. The grasslands stretched on farther than I could see. I could already tell this would be an incredible place to work.
We got to the house we were to stay in, then got called for tea and snacks. However, putting anything on my stomach at that time turned to be a horrible decision. We went outside to begin work immediately after, and I felt off-balance. I was afraid I was going to get sick, right here, in front of everyone. One of my supervisors instantly noticed asked if I was okay, and my childish hubris of thinking I’d be fine couldn’t hold up any longer. I admitted “No”, and she let me sit down for a bit. A few minutes later, she told me they would go on to start collecting soft-bodied ticks from warthog holes; I was to sit out for the rest of the day.
My heart sank. I didn’t want to miss out doing my job, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to even do my job correctly if I wasn’t in optimal health. Guiltily, I realized I myself was playing a part of One Health…my health affected my job in collecting ticks, which affects environmental and animal health. Thanks to life’s wonderful irony, I had to stand by my own belief and make sure I got better.
Luckily, I wasn’t sent back, as my symptoms weren’t that severe. But I had to lay in bed all day, still feeling ashamed that of all the days to get sick, my body chose that day.
I felt much better the following morning. My heart settled on making sure I did an exceptionally good job on whatever we did that day, to make up for missing yesterday. I was partially worried I’d fallen behind.
We started the day by dragging for ticks, which is pulling a large cloth to collect ticks. Ms. Irene taught me a different method of collection as well, called “flagging”, where one holds, essentially, a cloth flag and brushes it against shrubs, leaves, and other areas that cannot be walked on. Similarly to dragging, ticks grab onto the cloth and stick. I’d then use forceps to pick them off and collect them in a plastic vial. While the thought was a bit scary, it ended up being a lot of fun!
However, I soon realized I wasn’t fully better. Fatigue and nausea tugged on me still. Couldn’t my immune system do its job? Not wanting to give up, I tried to press on.
The second dragging site was gorgeous. We could see zebra and antelope in the distance, and I itched to go out there. I had a slower start, as Ms. Irene was showing me how to use this particular, smaller cloth for dragging, and when I finally began, she was quickly walking away. My fellow intern, and another man with us, were specks in the distance. Guessing we had to cover as much ground as possible, I went diagonally in their general direction, keeping a good distance.
It was a terrible idea. Soon the ground sloped, and I couldn’t see the others anymore. I looked around. I couldn’t even see the antelope and zebra, but I most definitely caught a group of ostriches walking maybe half a kilometer from me. My heart raced, as I’ve heard that wild ostriches aren’t particularly docile. I tried to quickly walk the opposite direction, but my instantly stomach twisted and my legs shook. My head spun. I couldn’t see anyone else…I was alone on the savanna. I checked my dragging cloth. Only one or two adult ticks on it this round…and then I examined myself.
I was covered in them. Not even the adults, young nymphs — or approximately teenagers — that are too small for lab identification. And on my pants cuffs, many, many red larvae, quickly climbing up my leg to find a suitable place under my clothes to latch on. My heart lurched and for a brief moment, I questioned why I was even doing this. I didn’t think curing hunger would involve being alone on the savanna, covered in tiny, 8-legged vampires, near potentially dangerous wildlife. Wasn’t there anything else I could do? I wanted to be a veterinarian, in an office, a clean, bug-free office, examining animals and sending them on their way. And if I felt sick, I could sit down and take something. Why did I choose this?!
As I flicked the young ticks off me, I forced myself to close my eyes and breathe. Being alone wasn’t helping me any good. I continued dragging up the slope, where I finally spotted the others, still as specks in the distance, growing smaller and smaller as they kept dragging on. How could they keep managing? I watched them in awe. If any of their health were faltering, the work didn’t at all reflect it, they were still dragging their cloths meters and meters away. They were so passionate about their cause that nothing was letting them stop them. I wasn’t sick to the point of passing out. If they could press through, so could I. I needed to. I’m panicking about a few ticks on my clothes while these wild animals, and livestock, the ones we were there to help, are covered in them daily. People get bitten daily, and what do they do? They realize their families, their employers, partners, needed them to work. And they press through. I could spend the rest of my life terrified, or I could care about the important job at absolutely needed to get done. And whether or not I hated ticks, I couldn’t dispute their importance, and that I absolutely needed to bite the bullet when handling them.
So, while it was gradual, I did grow from having a heart attack whenever I saw a large tick on my waist crawling closer and closer and instinctively brushing it off, to actually being partially relieved I caught something, pulling it off and placing it in my vial. I don’t think I got to the point where I didn’t shudder a little bit when I saw them crawl ominously in my tube, or getting very comfortable with the thought of picking or holding a living one in my bare hand, but I slowly found myself getting desensitized and enjoying the job. A job with ticks! I even found myself starting to, in a very limited way, like them; some of them even seemed to show different personalities by being stubborn, relaxed, or meek.
Dragging was not the only task we completed either, we also collected ticks off some livestock animals themselves. I got a chance too, while collecting ticks off camels, to get nose-kissed by several of them at once.
Nevertheless, I do have to say I absolutely enjoyed working in Kapiti. Ticks or no ticks, the feeling of getting to work while you are surrounded by African wildlife, with absolutely no barrier between you except space, animals you’ve dreamed of seeing in person ever since you saw cartoon scribbles of them in a children’s book, while savanna wind blows your hat, is indescribable.
Also, the house we stayed in had some of the nicest, most hospitable people I’ve ever met! I’m definitely going to miss them.
I never thought I’d genuinely love a bug-related job — or, well, an arthropod-related job — but I did. From being sick to facing an old fear, the experience proved hard initially, but I’m so glad I pushed through. I think I can now affirm that One Health truly is my passion, and I’m so thankful I’ve been able to learn this!
