Linda Badoian had been bit by ticks at least five times this summer before she got sick.
Like many others on Islesboro, Badoian, 86, has already had Lyme disease; ticks have become a part of life. But this time, something was different: her symptoms didn’t respond to the preventative dose of antibiotics the island’s health center typically gives out while waiting for test results from the mainland.
Badoian, it turned out, had Islesboro’s first confirmed case of babesiosis, a tick-borne disease caused by a parasite that attacks red blood cells faster than they can be replaced.
It made her so anemic that she almost needed a blood transfusion. Her strength now has mostly returned, but she’s still tired and nervous about going into the woods. Her husband, George, was also bitten by an infected tick this summer that made him so sick he turned delirious.
Islesboro has long grappled with some of the highest tick-borne disease rates in Maine, and is now seeing growing numbers of new illnesses such as babesiosis and anaplasmosis that can be harder to detect than Lyme. Residents expect the numbers to keep going up and are trying to adjust to a new reality where being outdoors comes with more risks.
‘It messes with your mind’
Deirdre Dixon, another seasonal island resident, didn’t see any of the signs she was used to looking for when she got sick this summer — no bullseye rash, no tick attached.
But over the course of a week she became unable to eat, weak, severely dehydrated and eventually plagued with night terrors that made her feel like she’d been drugged whenever she closed her eyes.
“It messes with your mind, too,” she said. “I started having these thoughts over the weekend, like, ‘You know, they’re probably going to find me dead in here.’”
Dixon ultimately spent several days at the hospital and tested positive for anaplasmosis, a tick-borne bacterial infection that can cause respiratory or organ failure and even death if left untreated.
When she returned, weeds were threatening to take over the garden that she called one of her great joys in life. She was afraid to touch them, spraying vinegar on the leaves hoping it would kill anything crawling there. Her fear of a tick getting into the house caused some friction with family.
“I didn’t want to get near anything green,” she said. “It’s like, you can have a really great garden, but it might kill you.”
High tick-borne disease rates
Islesboro residents have for years faced some of the highest tick-borne disease rates in Maine, according to state data. The town had more reported cases per population than any other between 2018 and 2022, the latest counts available, and its health center has seen steady numbers in the last two years.
The ticks use wildlife, including white-tailed deer, as hosts. Though ticks also live on rodents and birds, numerous islands from Monhegan to MDI have tried or considered reducing deer herds in an effort to cut down on disease cases.
For this reason, Islesboro voted in 2011 to kill 80 percent of the deer herd and later considered eliminating the animals entirely. The 11-mile island in Penobscot Bay, about 3 miles off of Lincolnville, was trying to manage what residents called a Lyme disease “epidemic.”
Maine’s coast and islands in particular are at more risk of tick-borne diseases than the rest of the state, and offshore islands were some of the first areas to raise alarm about them, according to Griffin Dill, who directs the tick lab at the University of Maine. Winters on the coast are milder, habitat is abundant for wildlife, dense deer populations are confined to a limited space and people spend lots of time outside.
At the island’s health center, suspected cases are one of the top three reasons people come in during peak season, according to Dorie Henning, a nurse practitioner who has worked there for 11 years. Some of her older patients tell her they have stopped gardening or going in the woods for fear they’ll get sick again.
Anaplasmosis has been rising in recent years, she said, and she expects to see more tick-borne diseases in the future as the climate changes and tick populations spread east. She’s braced for the arrival of the Powassan virus, an untreatable and potentially severe disease that is just starting to appear in the state.
Research suggests deer populations be reduced to eight to 13 animals per square mile to reduce disease, according to Dill, the tick expert. In 2011, when Isleboro’s residents wanted to shrink the deer herd by 80 percent, the island’s square-mile deer density was at least in the mid-50s.
Islesboro, which usually only allows bow hunting, later held three years of special firearm hunts, which didn’t work. After that, residents rejected a proposal to have trained shooters kill hundreds more, and then decided not to request another three years of firearm hunting, putting an end to the idea. State tagging data shows bow hunters have brought in between 110 and 170 white-tailed deer on the island annually since.
A complex problem
Hunting can still be a touchy subject, residents said. A decade ago, some said they liked to see the deer, but others wanted to hunt to feed their families or to protect themselves from ticks instead of the town getting involved.
Linda Gillies, a founding member of the island’s tick-borne disease committee, said the 2016 vote against further deer culling was so decisive that she can’t see it being considered again and would never suggest it. She believes that education and prevention efforts have been helpful in managing the risk.
“Awareness is everything, and I do think people are more careful when they go outside,” she said. “You’re never tick-less in this part of the world.”
Chloe Joule, the executive director of the island’s land trust, said the trust keeps its trails 4 feet wide to reduce contact with vegetation where ticks are found. When running programs for kids, she tries to make tick checks a habit, rather than something to feel afraid about.
“It’s a difficult line, but one we try to straddle … between raising awareness and not scaring people,” Joule said. “For me, the benefits of being outdoors in a natural setting far outweigh the negatives of possibly picking up a tick, but everyone has their own threshold of comfort with that, and I get it.”
Children still seem excited and unafraid of playing in the woods, she said, which she’s glad to see. For older residents, especially ones who have had frightening experiences with the diseases, it’s sometimes a different story.
Henning, the nurse practitioner, said her experiences point to urgency in developing a vaccine for Lyme and rapid testing that could determine what disease someone has instead of waiting for bloodwork results from the mainland. People who can afford it pay for pesticide treatments in their yards to control ticks.
To Badoian, the first babesiosis case, there’s no clear answer. She praised the health center’s education work, adding that it can be challenging to remember to take all the necessary steps every time she leaves the house. Badoian grew up playing freely outside; for today’s children and their parents, she said, there’s more to worry about.
She wonders if the deer herd could be reduced somewhat, but overall, it’s a problem without a clear solution.
“How do you figure it out?” she asked. “You just want it to work. You don’t want people getting sick.”