You may seen reports that Sydney vets are warning of a severe tick season, on the back of a wet summer.

In a report from the ABC, a group of veterinarian clinics in Sydney warned that “this year’s tick season is expected to be one of the worst yet”.

Tick season begins in spring and blooms in summer.

Sydney Animal Hospitals said “it was receiving daily reports of cats and dogs in critical condition across the city, with numerous severe cases of the potentially fatal condition tick paralysis”.

University of Queensland researcher Professor Stephen Barker, who has been researching ticks for 25 years, agrees the 2024 tick season will be bad.

“Because it’s always bad,” he said.

The statistics

But modelling from Barker and his team predicts the season to be an average one.

He told The New Daily that the modelling – using vet and weather data – included sampling from sites in Sydney.

“An average season still means 4000 to 5000 vet visits in eastern Australia are tick-related,” he said.

One in 10 of those pets die from the tick toxin or can’t be saved and need to be euthanised.

He said many pets in remote areas would die without making it to a vet.

“Previous studies have established that the tick risk to pets in any spring and summer period in eastern Australia is linked to the weather the previous summer when eggs were laid.”

A Sydney vet pulled seven ticks from a stray cat this month. Photo: Sydney Animal Hospitals.

He said if it is hot and dry “many will die but if it is mild and wet, many will survive to reach hatch maturity the following spring”.

He said that’s when ticks “are looking for hosts and are the most dangerous for pets and people”.

The most common tick

There are 70 different types of ticks in Australia.

The Australian paralysis tick (Ixodes holocyclus) is responsible for more than 95 per cent of tick bites in people and for most tick-borne illnesses in Australia.

It breeds mainly along the eastern coast. This means that more than 50 per cent of the Australian population is potentially exposed to this tick.

The Australian paralysis tick feeds on both animal and human blood.

Most tick bites are harmless in humans, but the paralysis tick is capable of causing severe allergic reactions and paralysis.

According to a federal government explainer, tick-induced allergies are caused by tick saliva, which is a type of venom containing hundreds of different types of proteins, which is injected by the tick through the feeding process.

According to the explainer, over a two-year period, one hospital in NSW recorded more than 550 presentations of tick bite to its emergency department, with 34 of these resulting in anaphylaxis, and over 75 per cent of these requiring adrenalin use.

According to NSW Health, early symptoms of paralysis include rashes, headache, fever, flu-like symptoms, tenderness of lymph nodes, unsteady gait, intolerance to bright light, increased weakness of the limbs and partial facial paralysis.

Symptoms in dogs and cats

A paralysis tick bite can be fatal to your pet.

If you haven’t spotted a tick on your animals, the signs, they have been bitten, according to the RSPCA, include:

• Loss of co-ordination in the hind legs, staggering or not being able to get up
• Weakness in the back legs
• A change in the sound of the bark or voice
• Retching, coughing, vomiting
• Excessive salivation or drooling
• Loss of appetite
• Progressive paralysis to include the forelegs
• Difficulty breathing or rapid breathing
• Grunting noises when breathing.

How to protect your pet

• Avoiding the tick habitat. During the tick season, don’t take your dog walking in bush areas or scrub areas known to harbour ticks
• Keep lawns and shrubs short and remove compost material from backyards
• Applying tick control products as advised by your vet. Important note: Never use any dog tick control products on cats as some dog products are highly toxic to cats and can kill them
• A thorough search of your dog or cat’s skin and coat at least once a day
• If a tick is seen, remove it as quickly as possible and take your pet to the vet immediately.

Humans are advised to use an ether-based freezing product to remove ticks from family members.

See here for how to remove ticks from your pet.

For more about the potential dangers that ticks pose to people, see here and here.