6-14-25 - Tick Talk with Dr. Rebekah Epps, Johnathan Larson, & Kurt Avery

Join co-host Scott Cronin and me on the air tonight as we dive into an eye-opening discussion with entomology experts Dr. Rebekah Epps and Johnathan Larson from the University of Kentucky. We will also be joined by Kurt Avery, founder of Sawyer Products, an industry leader specializing in insect repellents.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
News Radio eight forty whas welcomes you to Jim Straighter Outdoors,
the region's leading authority on hunting, fishing, and conservation. Jim
Straighter Outdoors is brought to you by Linden Animal Clinic,
your pet's best friend. Check them out at Lyndenanimalclinic dot com.
SMI Marine getting your boat back on the water in
no time. Bardstown Mills, the region's leader and all things

(00:25):
for agriculture, lawn care, archery and pet products. Kentucky Cabincare
your log home restoration specialists. Called Justin Bryant at five
oh two, nine oh two, seven three four to oh
or check them out at Kycabincare dot com. Yavah of
Louisville for all of your Yavaha, Polaris and Suzuki sales
and service where they treat you square the year round

(00:46):
ops supply in Simpsonville, your firearms and archery headquarters. Cox
Forestry maximize your timber sales with forestry consultant David Cox.
Called David at five oh two, eight oh two, six
oh two one and by Webb's Butcher Block where the
spice is right to joining on the conversation, call us
at five oh two five seven one eight four eight

(01:06):
four inside Louisville and one one hundred four four four
eight four eight four outside the Metro. Now, sit back
and relax and enjoy the best two hours of live
outdoor radio Jim Straighter Outdoors right here on News Radio
eight forty whas.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Good night everyone, Jim Straighter here, and we have a
special program for you tonight, and it's all about ticks.
These critters have infected so many of my friends, family members,
and members of the outdoor community in the last several years,
and it's fair to say it is at epidemic proportions.

(01:42):
And in response to your aals interests in that, we've
got a great show for you tonight. We've got some
special guests to tell you all about tics and this
show is primarily aimed and focused on awareness and prevention
so that you can continue to enjoy the outdoors. A

(02:03):
lot of things we're going to talk about are a
little bit scary, but we want to help you be
aware that you still get in the outdoors and enjoy
all the pleasures that go with it as long as
you're aware and use the right preventative measures. In that regard,
our special guest or doctor Rebecca Epps, she is an
Associate Professor of Agricultural Education and Advocacy at the University

(02:28):
of Kentucky. And Jonathan Larson, who is an extension entomologist
at the University. And we're also going to be talking
to Kurt Avery. He's the founder of sol Your Products,
which I imagine a lot of you listeners are familiar with.
That's a global company and innovator of insect repellence of
water filtration systems. And he's going to take you down

(02:52):
the road park Pete and Parcel to how to protect yourself.
So Scott, great lineup. This is really on a lot
of people's minds.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
It's going to be fantastic.

Speaker 4 (03:05):
We'll talk to folks if they like to eat, this
program will impact them, especially if it regards to meat,
if folks have livestock or horses, any pet owners, lots
of folks that have different careers, gym or being impacted
by ticks in their workplace. It's become as common as

(03:26):
safety glasses to treat your clothing. And I think that
we're on the movement of PPE starting to be with
insect repellent clothing and with different types of sprays like
Current has invented for us to all utilize. And we
want to make sure that folks are aware of everything

(03:46):
that can happen, no.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
Matter if they're livestock producers.

Speaker 4 (03:49):
Or men and women just trying to get outdoors and
enjoy landscaping under backyard or chasing a big buck.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Jim, Absolutely, So I'm gonna go to break here. Come
back from break. We're going to talk to doctor Rebecca
Epps as lead in this break is presented by SMI Marine.

Speaker 5 (04:06):
Go see them.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
They'll take care of all your voting needs. Remember you
never get soaked at SMI.

Speaker 3 (04:14):
Doctor Epps.

Speaker 4 (04:15):
The Session of Rural America, especially in the state of Kentucky,
is dealing with a pretty big problem with this tick infestation.
And we have got some problems that are leading into
diseases that folks can get. And it's a big importance
to me and you because of our relationship with agriculture

(04:35):
and livestock producers. And want to talk a little bit
about with you on some statistics and data of what's
going on and why folks that raise livestock or eat
products from livestock, deal with pets or horses need to
be aware of what's going on with the ticks and

(04:57):
how they're impact in our life in rural Kentucky.

Speaker 6 (05:01):
Yeah, one of the things when I first got really
familiar with I'm not originally from Kentucky, but became very
familiar with Kentucky over the last fifteen years that I've
been here, and people kept telling me about tickborn vector
borne diseases, and I kept hearing this thing called alpha
gal and I was just like, wait a minute, what
is this and why should I care? And when I

(05:24):
first heard about this, probably two thousand and nine twenty twelve,
it was like, Okay, this only really affects those that
are outdoorsmen, And then I've realized it's a lot more
than just the outdoorsmen. In two thousand and nine, there
were actually only twelve cases of Alpha gal that were

(05:45):
reported here in Kentucky, and by twenty twenty three, there
were over four hundred and fifty thousand cases in the
United States and over fifteen thousand new cases each year.
And they're actually eight different tisbies. And I'm gonna let
doctor Larson because he is the expert on those actual
species that are carriers for alpha gal and which ones

(06:08):
are the most prolific here in Kentucky. But yeah, it's phenomenal,
especially when you think about how it's not just the outdoorsman,
but for us who are working with people and preparing
students for careers in agriculture and related fields. When you
think about our construction workers and our landscaping crews, our

(06:32):
forestry friends, those my son works for local surveyor doing
land surveying, and it just became very natural for me
to ask him every week, do you have enough spray?
And I meant not only sunscreen but also deep to
make him through the wheat because of where he was surveying.

(06:54):
And that's really important not just for our farmers that
are there every day and our traditional when we think
of outdoors and those that hunt, those that take trips
around agritourism and outdoor tourism, but people that are working
in parks and wildlife management, linemen that are doing utility

(07:16):
line work, and those are I mean, we're all sitting
here thinking, I know one of my students in each
one of those categories who could have easily gotten alpha
gal because of it, and just being a big part
of that is how different the alphagal symptoms are for
every individual. Sometimes it can show up as a rash,

(07:38):
and sometimes it can show up as digestive issues or
gastrointestinal issues, And it takes a lot of time and
just general stick to itness when trying to figure out, Hey,
something is wrong with me, but I don't know what
it is. Because unless you can identify, hey, I was
bitten by this tick in this specific time, and within

(08:01):
two to six hours later I started suffering these diseases
or these symptoms, it's hard for you to really identify it.
And that's one of the problems with a lot of
our vector born diseases is things that we see as
symptoms don't always show up. I know, you know, if
I've been outside at a picnic on a local farm

(08:22):
two to six hours later and I get gi distressed,
I'm typically not thinking, well that I get bit by tich,
but I'm thinking, Okay, who brought the potato salad? And
how long is that out there? When I ate it?
Kind of thing. So it's very, very, very hard, And
that's why just letting people know what this is and
how big of a problem it is, and that it

(08:42):
can affect lots and lots of different type People's not
just those who are in outdoor careers. It's very correct important.

Speaker 4 (08:49):
And Jim, I know that it's a passion of ours
to share with people first and most importantly that we
want to help with their health. We want to find
ways in which we can educate people and have preventative measures.
And the way that we can do that is by
utilizing the doctor Epse at the University of Kentucky and

(09:11):
the Cooperative Extension Service to make sure that folks are
getting information that they need on not only prevention, but
also if they are and that misfortunate statistical number of
being impacted with their health or their livestock is impacted,
it's going to be important that folks know where to go.

Speaker 3 (09:29):
But Jim, what's your concerns right now in the.

Speaker 4 (09:32):
State of Kentucky when it comes to tics and how
we get people educated.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
Well, my number one fear is that people will stop
getting outdoors because there's no more healthy environment to be in.
Generally speaking, and obviously is a lifelong hunter and fishermen,
it's extremely important to me. So we want to make
sure people are aware of tics in the hazards that

(10:00):
they pose, and then hopefully through tonight's program, we can
help people identify the symptoms, we can help them identify
what to do if they have been bitten by a tick.
I guess reback of the most important thing we should
I part here is if you are bitten by a
tick and you have any symptom whatsoever, or even as

(10:24):
a preventative, if you've been bitten by a tick, you
may want to see a doctor because most of these
diseases are fairly easy to cure if you jump on
them right away. I think that's one of the things
that I want to point out. But conversely, it's the
prevention of the tick biting you that we're going to

(10:46):
focus on a lot in the second hour with Kurt Avery.

Speaker 4 (10:50):
Yeah, and you know, doctor EPs and I have had
a long time relationship with working through educational processes, and
we're teaming up later on in July to work with
a group of people to help make them informed on
how to make good decisions and how to make sure
that young people know how to enter onto the farm

(11:12):
or into the woods. But Doc, what was surprising about
this when we started to put our heads together about
tick awareness is how the national representatives for Pork and
Beef and a lot of other sectors of meat that
we consume have really not looked too forward and ahead

(11:33):
as far as the economic impact and between tourism and
what we buy at a grocery store. We're looking at
millions into billions of dollars that this can have an impact,
because my take on it is, if you take a
family and one person in that family can't consume a
certain product like beef or pork, there's probably a better

(11:56):
than average chance that chicken or fish may be on
the menu, and it could have a substantial impact to
our livestock producers because it's just a good old fashioned
supplying to man.

Speaker 6 (12:09):
Yeah, I mean I grew up in a house that
my mother would cook one meal and you could eat
it or leave it alone. And that's pretty much how
it is in our house too. We cook one meal
and you can eat it or leave it alone. And
back then it was because of preference, you know, I
didn't like something, or my brothers didn't like something. But
now it's a health thing. Well, you know your brother

(12:31):
can't have steak. We're not gonna eat it in front
of them because it will truly endanger his life, you know.
So yeah, supplying to man like you said, if it's
if it's affecting your child or you or someone in
your household, you are not gonna want to be a
part of that, you know, uh, consumer group. And even

(12:56):
that's going to affect the bottom line. And I know
that we're at an all time love of cattle in
the United States, which is causing you know, low supply,
which is a calling for an increase in pricing. But
at the same time we may become lower as this
vector borne disease continues.

Speaker 5 (13:16):
Jim.

Speaker 4 (13:16):
One of the major things that we've got to consider
with all of this too is that whenever we start
looking at tick borne illness, it's not just going to
impact one sector of people. It's not going to just
impact people that go to the woods. This has become
a problem where people are being impacted in and around

(13:38):
their backyard, the parks and which they visit. And like
you said, our main goal is to make sure that
people don't throw their hands up in the air and
throw up the stop.

Speaker 3 (13:48):
Sign on getting out and enjoying the outdoors.

Speaker 6 (13:53):
Well, then stop sign of getting outdoors. You know, we
both experienced some of our h U A Worker friends
who were not told anything about tics or vector moren
diseases and we've seen them at the end of the
day and they're covered in them, and it's like, WHOA,

(14:13):
do you not know these little things exist? And if so,
are you not getting deep? You know? Can we help
you with this? And I don't know if that is
a Well, there's probably multiple reasons because of that, but
language barrier being one of them, but also them not
knowing not having information available to them in their native languages.

(14:35):
And then sometimes your farmers who are using H two
A workers may not even realize that they don't know
what they don't know. And that's that's going to affect
more than just our cattle and our port prices, but
definitely even our vegetable and fruit markets.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
And Rebecca, for folks, we have a large general audience
that listens to the show, and I think it's important
to point out when we're talking about alpha gal if
they're not familiar with it, it is a really nasty
disease where you become, for lack of a word, allergic
to red meat.

Speaker 5 (15:11):
And that includes all those food items.

Speaker 2 (15:13):
That you mentioned, and you know, I'm like, shoot me,
you know you're craving for red meat is a natural thing.
And it's something that just being disrupted by that in
the horrible symptoms that it produces in people. You mentioned
some of them, rash, fever. There's just all kinds of

(15:36):
things that go with that. And then you turn the
corner and start to talk about line disease, which it's
really nasty, but I guess in either case it's out there.
We need to raise awareness and then talk about preventative
measures to help protect us.

Speaker 5 (15:54):
Correct, that's correct.

Speaker 6 (15:56):
And some of the symptoms that people don't realize hives
and an itchy rash and okay, swelling, and of course
I would probably be apt to look for something like
a tick or you know, a bite or even you know,
if I've been in the woods, maybe even poison oak

(16:17):
or poison ivy. But at the same time, it can
also cause just horrible abdominal cramps. I just like the
term GI distress, which kind of includes an aldivomiting arhea
that no one likes to talk about but we all
have experienced, and shortness of breath, your blood pressure drops,

(16:38):
you get joint pain. I mean, so these are symptoms
that can cross several different problem areas all the way
from you know, your respiratory system to your GI system
as well as your dermal system. So it's and that's
part of the reason is it's so individualized because I

(17:01):
may not have a rash, but you might, whereas I
have GI distress. And for whatever reason, Scott goes directly
into you know, his respiratory system with his shortness of breath.
So we don't really know exactly. We can't say that
there's one individual thing that pinpoints it. So a lot
of people suffer for several several years before they really

(17:25):
get to see an allergist who takes the time to
listen and understand and realize something is wrong, and we
don't know what it is. And the only way that
you can actually diagnose alpha galt is through a blood test,
and if you don't let them know. And because it
is found, you know, these ticks are found in such

(17:46):
common areas you don't think about it unless you say, oh,
I've been hunting this weekend, or I was fishing at
such and such lake, or this, that and the other,
which leads them to believe that you're outdoors. But it's
very common and people who would not consider themselves outdoors
men or outdoors women are people that are coming down
with this problem.

Speaker 7 (18:09):
But also is.

Speaker 4 (18:11):
These these restaurants, Doctor Epps are having to change their ways.
Doctors are having to learn, you know, symptoms, and Jim,
it's like me and you talked about earlier this week,
when Alignment gets out of a truck and they walk
up to do service on a line or bring power back.
A lot of people would think that the electricity would

(18:33):
be the biggest hazard in that individual's life, but it
could be that little bitty tick that's crawling up the
inside of their pant leg that could be more catastrophic
to their life than grabbing the hold of that electric
line and putting harm through their body that way. And
that I think that's what's so powerful about these ticks
is how it is impacting our livestock.

Speaker 3 (18:55):
It's impacting our pants, our pets.

Speaker 4 (18:58):
But people of all different careers, Jim Straighter, are having
to take on a totally different risk now whenever they
go out into an environment, and if they don't have
the precautions that are taken, that's good.

Speaker 6 (19:14):
That's one of other things that blew my mind with
people with hygiene products, because I was talking with someone
who had at Alpha gal and they had to be careful,
even like when they have soaps and lotions that they use,
because if it has glycerin in it, and that is
an animal fat, it can even cause more irritations than

(19:35):
some that does not. And I was talking to him,
and I don't want to say the names because I'll
get it wrong, but there was a specific medicine that's
very common that he could not take a gel cap
because of the gelatin that was in it, compared to
another brand that did not use gelatin in their quote
unquote jail caps. So yes, it things like that that

(19:58):
we don't even think about it. You know, you're like, hey,
you got to you gotta tone all in your purse
or something like that. And now it's like, okay, not
only what type of medicine is this, but what what
how is it being given? That's a problem. So it
effects of our lives.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
All right, Rebecca, we got to go to the news
break here. This break is presented by Marci old Property's
Heart Realty.

Speaker 5 (20:22):
We'll have.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
Jonathan Larson on again, and Rebecca will be with us
continuing after the break.

Speaker 5 (20:29):
Stick with us.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
We'll be right back, and we're joined now by Jonathan
Larson who's an extension entomologist at the University of Kentucky,
has tremendous headful of knowledge about these nasty critters and
the types of diseases they carry. Jonathan, thanks so much
for being a board tonight, and I'm gonna let you

(20:51):
take off with this, because there's lots of different kinds
of ticks and different things people need.

Speaker 5 (20:56):
To be aware of.

Speaker 7 (20:58):
Absolutely, it seems like we're turn around and finding ticks
on ourselves here in Kentucky. I've joked before that we
could change the state name to Kenticky, just because it
seems like we have so many of these little bloodsuckers
out there. The main ones that we deal with, I
would say, are the lone star ticks. Those are the
ones that people seem to find most commonly on them
or their pets. We've also got black legged deer ticks

(21:19):
in the state, and then American dog tick, which used
to be a bit mightier, used to be a little
more common than it is now. There's also some up
and comers. There's the Asian longhorn tick. There's a few
other species that we could talk about, but I don't
want to get us too lost in the the iraq
nid weeds as it were, So those would be kind
of the main players that I mentioned.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
Okay, And there are some interesting things about these different species.

Speaker 5 (21:44):
It takes like a lone star.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
I wasn't aware that it wasn't a vector for life disease.

Speaker 7 (21:54):
Yeah, lone star tick is not a vector for that one.
The main vector for that particular pathogen is going to
be on this side of the country at least, is
going to be the black legged deer tick. It's more
famous the further north you get up into Pennsylvania, and
then a little further beyond that that's where lime was
first discovered and first confirmed, and then those ticks are

(22:15):
a little more common up there.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
Yes, sir, so the low star in particular, off top
of your head, do you know the diseases that it carries.

Speaker 7 (22:25):
Sure, I mean the main one, it's not a disease,
it's an allergy. It's red meat allergy also probably more
better known as alpha gal. You can also find with
lone star tick a few different problems besides that, but
that's really the main one that everybody's talking about. As
you were hearing about before, it's not a disease, so
it's not a pathogen that they're spreading. It's a sugar

(22:46):
molecule that they're picking up in the environment. We don't
think that they're born with it at this point, but
they could be. It's a very confusing allergic situation, frankly,
but unfortunately, some of them are going to be able
to pass that from their body into yours. And we
do not contain alpha gal the sugar molecule. We're some
of the few mammals that don't. And because of that,

(23:08):
our body will mount an immune response to it and
then end up creating this allergic reaction. And then if
you consume a product that has alpha gal in it,
your body will mount that same immune response. Besides that one,
you could also talk about starry, which is Southern tick
associated rash illness. It looks a lot like lime disease.

(23:30):
There's also tularemia, er lithiosis, and bourbon virus that are
associated with that species.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
Okay, and likechyl I've had some friends contract that disease
and I'm telling you it's nasty.

Speaker 7 (23:50):
Yeah, none of them are very fun. Unfortunately, it's not
stuff that you really want to get. Erlichiosis is a
bacteria and it causes a lot of these. What you
feel is you'll get bitten by the tick, and then
maybe within a day or a day and a half,
after the tick has been feeding on you for a while,
you may start to experience flu like symptoms. Most of

(24:10):
these will express and most of the pathogens that we
talk about tonight and the diseases they cause, they cause
kind of achiness, muscle achiness, fatigue, fever. Some of them
are going to create rashes or spots on you, and
all of those different things are going to clue you
into something bad is going on inside your body.

Speaker 4 (24:29):
John, As we learn more about these ticks, we're learning
that as time goes on, that they're having more havoc
in our life. And this is helping when we go
out and we try to advocate on the educational side,
because we've got so many things that we've got to consider.

(24:49):
We've got our livestock producers that are starting to realize
that certain tick species could impact livestock. We're starting to
realize that folks that are outwalking their pets could end
up having some zoonotic disease symptoms. And then people their
diet is having to change or they're having to make

(25:11):
these adaptations with line disease or other health impacts that
come into their life. What's your fear, John, Not that
we want to put people in panic, but you're right here.
I mean you're in a war zone of ticks. Where
are we going with things? And why is it such
an increase and alarming rate.

Speaker 7 (25:34):
That's a great question. I would say that this is
kind of multifaceted. Unfortunately all the hard problems are, which
means it's harder to kind of get at them and
control them with ticks. I would point to a few things.
We have a lot more weedy habitat with some of
our invasive plants that have come in. Think of all
the bush, honeysuckle and things that you've maybe taken out
on your property. That gives them some harborridges and places

(25:55):
to hide and knots and crannies. There's also a lot
more deer and mice than their previous work, either some
of the primary hosts or ticks, and so because of that,
they have more things that they can feed on when
they're smaller, or things that they can feed on when
they're bigger, and that's going to give them higher populations
and be more successful in the state, and then we've
got problems where things are getting more sort of amenable

(26:18):
to them, The environments are becoming more the temperature that
helps them to survive better, and it's helping them to
create bigger populations, and so kind of all those things combined,
as well as more people trying to kind of move
in where the ticks are, where the animals are. We
like to build our properties in our suburbs and things
near them, and so we're being exposed to ticks more frequently.

Speaker 4 (26:39):
I would argue and John, what's your opinion on when
folks look at their trail cameras and they see deer
and other animals that are absolutely infested with ticks from
your experience and research and field work, where we add
as far as what we know what tis are doing

(27:00):
to mammals that we care to hunt and raise.

Speaker 7 (27:05):
There's certainly a high ticklad, especially on the white tailed deer.
There are lots of things that are trying to hop
on board them and give them a creepy little hug
and start slurping their blood out. So we certainly feel
for the welfare of those animals. Hunters, of course, they
don't want to be hunting you know, rangy kind of
withered creatures that are almost anemic because they have such
a high tickload on them. So I think that people

(27:26):
are interested in trying to not only help people and
pets and domesticated animals, but there's a hope that maybe
in the future they'll be techniques that we can use
outdoors that will help some of those animals to I
won't say rubbers or anything like that where the deers
will be treated. We have other deer pathogens of course
that we don't want them communally sharing, but there will

(27:46):
be things, I think in the future that will help
to control ticks on a larger scale with wildlife. I
think up north they're testing out these tubes that you
can deploy that mice will go into and they can
be treated with some anti tit compounds. So maybe we'll
start getting them at the route kind of at that
smaller stage where they think around here, a lot of
people call them seed ticks or turkey ticks when they're tinier.

(28:08):
But there'll be I think things in the future that
will help these animals to suffer less.

Speaker 5 (28:14):
John, we got to go to break here in a moment.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
But this Asian tick is a real, big concern given
what I've gleaned out of some of the literature that
I've read and what's happening in other parts of the country.

Speaker 5 (28:27):
Can you talk a little bit about it.

Speaker 7 (28:30):
Certainly, this is an invasive species, so it's been accidentally
introduced to the United States multiple times, but it's been
successfully repelled by the USDA and a lot of federal
people who are really good at their jobs at protecting
us from these kind of invasive species. I would say
that there was a slip through at some point. This
had started in New Jersey back in the early twenty tens.

(28:52):
It's been spreading from there ever since. It's been found
in Kentucky several times. Some of those finds have been
on wildlife. Was a bear and I think an elk
that were both involved that they were discovered to have
this tick on. But then beyond that, a lot of
the cases have involved cattle, so the bowls in particular.
I think when I've talked to people that have dealt
with this, they find them on the bowls and then

(29:14):
they find them on the other cows that are in
the herd. But it's an amazing tick because it reproduces
through parthenogenesis, so it's not reproducing, it's asexual. I guess
I should say it's not mating. They're all female ticks
as far as we know, and then they're kind of
photocopying themselves and making the next generation of ticks.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
And from what I have read, they can be extremely
dense in population.

Speaker 5 (29:39):
Correct. Yes.

Speaker 7 (29:40):
Yeah. If you've ever had acids on a plant, like
a pepper plant outside or a houseplant indoors, you may
have noticed that it seems you go from zero apids
to a million apids very quickly. Kind of a similar
situation because those can also reproduce through these asexual means,
and so we can end up with these really high
tick loads. I believe there have been cases and other
states in particular, where animals have exsanguinated, essentially they've bled

(30:04):
to death into these ticks. So it's a very high
tick load. It's very stressful. Of course, that's going to
impact market when you're trying to take that cow in
and sell it because it's probably going to have failed
to gain weight and it's going to have some other
issues and it's been suffering that whole time. So it's
definitely a tick we're on the lookout for trying to
help people to monitor. For doctor Hannah Tiffin, our veterinary entomologist,

(30:27):
she's going to be doing some work I believe with
Asian longhorntick in the future we're going to have to
just because we're getting confronted with it more.

Speaker 2 (30:34):
Okay, I want to continue that discussion after this break, John.
This break is presented by moltild Properties Heart Realty. Check
out their current listings at MLP h N E R
T realty dot com. John, we were talking about those
Asian tips and if those things will kill moss and cattle,

(30:55):
will certainly standard RECABC co on, rabbits, deer, oh, the creators.

Speaker 7 (31:02):
Yeah, for sure, wildlife are definitely at risk. We think
about the domesticated animals more because I think that we
are around them a little bit more frequently. But absolutely
I don't think that the wildlife would be safe and
they would definitely get a high take load as well.

Speaker 5 (31:18):
What actually impacts tick populations.

Speaker 7 (31:23):
We actually impact so the availability of something to feed on.
Ticks our blood feeding ectoparasites. They have to have something
to get blood from. They're never switching off and drinking
a sip of nectar here will or nibbling on a
leaf over here. It's pure blood all the time. And
so as long as they can find hosts and more
and more hosts, that's going to help to increase those populations.

(31:45):
It's going to help them to sustain those higher populations.
Beyond that, they need habitat, They need places to hang
out and hide out. They don't really like the sun.
I've already talked about their proclivity for blood, but they
also don't like the sunlight. So it feels a little
even more vampiric are kind of hiding out and all
these different nooks and crannies, and they don't want to
be exposed to a high amount of sun or UV radiation.

(32:07):
So usually kind of along the edges of habitats, places
with a little bit longer grass or a little bit
longer strubbery, all those spots are going to be hot
spots for them. So I'd say those are the two things,
are places to live and things to bite.

Speaker 4 (32:21):
John calls about it being in ticky, you know, instead
of Kentucky having to battle this crisis as we close
out the first hour.

Speaker 7 (32:32):
That's a great question, you know, I think that that's
something that it's a big conversation that would probably have
to have to happen on a state level, and then
kind of trailing downward into county and then even community
level conversations about what are we going to do to
try and combat some of these problems in terms of
are we going to go through in mo areas down
a little more frequently? That doesn't always appeal to folks,
especially as we have people trying to establish you know,

(32:55):
maybe turkey or quail habitat, or people who are trying
to establish pollinator habitats ask about aerial spraying or aerial
wide spring not really a very helpful thing with ticks
in particular, just too far down kind of in all
those crevices in the environment. So I think that's going
to have to be a lot of conversations about how
to protect yourself, about how to do things on your
own property to establish tick barriers, maybe some three foot

(33:19):
wide key gravel at the edge of the property to
kind of create a tick free zone, or spraying more
directly on the lawn and sort of near the edge
of the property. And then what are you going to
do to yourself. You're going to wear repellents which are
skin based or insecticides which would be clothing based. And
then being aware. We do a lot of education in
the Extension Service trying to get people to know there's

(33:41):
somebody ticks out there all the time. If you're even
just outside for fifteen twenty minutes weeding your garden, kind
of taking a stroll through the bushes, you really need
to come inside and do a tick check. So it'd
be important to kind of take your clothes off, use
the mirror to inspect all the different hotspots. I believe
there's a country song about how romantic it is to
do tick checks with a romantic partner, and so maybe

(34:02):
you can get some help with that if you got
it in your life. But you would check maybe your
knees and ankles, kind of around your waist, you want
to look around the nape of your neck, your ear,
your belly button. I had a client once who had
a kick down on their belly button probably for about
ten days feeding and then came out fully in gorge.
So there's all different kinds of spots that are thinner

(34:23):
skin rich in blood vessels that they're going to be
able to take a meal from.

Speaker 2 (34:28):
And John there I guess The most important thing I'd
like to impart here is this is the old ance
of prevention is worth the pound of cure in a big,
big way, is it not. In other words, you got
to be prepared to go out in the woods, or
out in the fields, or even out in your backyard.

(34:49):
We're going to be talking about some products that can
help protect you and that's the best first line of defence.

Speaker 5 (34:55):
Correct.

Speaker 7 (34:57):
Absolutely, yes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound
of is very very apt in this situation because once
you have some of these things, particularly alpha gal I mean,
this is something you're going to be dealing with for
an extended period of time. Other things, you could maybe
get some medication for some antibiotics for the different bacterial diseases,
but it's never any fun to go through all of that.

(35:17):
So anything that you can do to protect yourself and
to be aware, those are absolutely the tools that we
hope people will keep in their back pocket or in
the back of their truck that Scott was kind of
alluding to before with the PPE. So if people can
just be aware and be cautious, it would be great.

Speaker 5 (35:33):
Thank you, sir, Rebecca, thank you for joining us tonight.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
I do want to mention before we close out here
that I've had several folks have success of treatment of
alpha gal through acupuncture. I don't know if either of
you familiar with that, but I've hit several friends and
relatives that have had some success with that, and we'll

(35:57):
talk about that some more here in the set. And now,
all right, folks, coming up, we got Kurt Avery, founder
of Sawyer Products. They are a global company and innovators
of insect repellents and water filtration systems. We're going to
talk about how to protect yourself at length in the
next hour, so stick with us. The break is presented
by SMI Marine. Nobody gets soaked at SMI. All right, folks.

(36:26):
Pursuing to the first hour, when we describe the various
types of ticks and some of the diseases that they
carry and how it's impacting a broad brush of people
across the country, we are following with Kurt Avery. Kurt
is the founder of sol Your Products. A lot of listeners,
I'm sure aware of their products.

Speaker 5 (36:46):
They are available all across the region.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
They're a global company and innovators of insect repellents and
water filtration systems. Kurt, welcome, aboard, and thank you so
much for coming up with us. You're a very busy
man with a great, big global organization, so we're beholding.

Speaker 5 (37:05):
To you, sir.

Speaker 8 (37:07):
Well, yeah, you know, you're a legend, so it's actually
our honor to be able to be on your show.
So thank you.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
All right, And you and I had a long discussion
about this, and I know you want to tell people
about tics and how they operate, and how to prevent
them and how to remove them. You've got to just
a wealth of information at your disposal because you're in
the business. So I'm gonna turn this over to you.
And I guess i'd ask you to tell people they

(37:36):
don't need to stop going outdoors.

Speaker 8 (37:40):
Oh no, no, you'd be outdoors. It's too nice to
be inside to get those put the phone down, get
the game going off, and get outside and enjoy creation.
It's wonderful fresh air. Do you good. So usually I
start with, let's understand what it is and how a

(38:00):
tick operates, kind of take some of the panic out
of our thing. Not all of it, but most of it.
A lot of people don't understand that ticks have very
slow metabolism. They only breathe once every fifteen minutes, So
the very slow moving creatures. If you do get we'll
talk about prevention, we'll talk about how to remove them.

Speaker 7 (38:23):
If you have them.

Speaker 8 (38:23):
But if they are on you, it's going to take
eight anywhere from eight to twenty four hours depending what
study you listen to, before they would trade enough fluids
with you for you to get sick. So you have
plenty of time to deal with a tick, to get
it off you or prevent it from even embedding, and
with our promethrone and other types of repellents. So really,

(38:45):
the first thing I do is just let's not panic.
We can deal with these things. We just don't want
to let them in bed, and we don't let them
if they do, we don't want to leave them in
there very long. So you were talking earlier, why are
there so many ticks out there? Are now? Well, you know,
the climate has something to do with it a little warmer,

(39:06):
But one of the big reasons is we're reclaiming the woods.
We're putting our houses out where they used to be woods,
and we've taken away The mice are the real factor,
not the big animals that you think of it, but
the mice are the ones that keep the population up,
and then they find their way to the bigger animals.
And we've taken away the predators, the foxes and the

(39:28):
hawks and all those have been chased away because we
carve up those woods to put our houses in there.
And you know, foxes need a lot of territory and
hawks do too, and we've chopped it all up. They're gone,
and now the mice proliferate. So typical mouse could have
anywhere from ten to twelve ticks on it or more.
And so one of the things we do is let's

(39:51):
depopulate the ticks a little bit. So you take a
little cotton ball and you treat it with promethrone. We're
obviously the number one brand. You'll find it in a
yellow box or can you spray it on the on
the cotton ball, and you leave that out in the
yard and tuck it away a little bit so you

(40:12):
don't have to look at it. But the mice will
find it and they'll take it back to their nest
and they'll build it in their nest, and all the
ticks are going to die when they come in contact
with the promesthone on the cotton. So that's you're going
to depopulate the tick population a little bit, so that
should help cut them down our farms. You know, of course,

(40:33):
mice are there all the time. You get a good
cat that might help, but you're not going to beat
the mice. So it's a great place to do that
on the farm. Keep the ticks down. You may not wet,
We're not going to kill them out mice, but we
will kill the ticks.

Speaker 4 (40:48):
When it comes to the ticks and the prevention, there
are very few people in my life that I've ever met,
and you're one of them.

Speaker 5 (40:59):
In Core.

Speaker 4 (41:00):
Travis is another that deserve a lot of respect and
a lot of credit when it comes to Permethron and
some of the other products that you have to offer.

Speaker 5 (41:11):
Tell us a little.

Speaker 4 (41:12):
Bit too, about how that for methron developed in your
relationship with it, and how we prevent our tick infestation
with treating our clothes and even getting into our skin
treatment a little bit with Accardian.

Speaker 8 (41:29):
Yeah, the permethine goes back to nineteen eighty three actually
in response to the original lyne disease scare and the
military needs it needed it, so we ended up buying
the company that invented it because it fit perfectly with us,
and they're good friends of ours. We were parallel partners
for a while. So basically, our predecessor, our company, invented

(41:53):
the whole concept of the promethrone and got it through
the EPA. And it's not all your military uniform. Every
soldier the US and Canada, we supply both of them.
It's on the uniform and they use the dosage that
lasts for twenty six weeks, which is the life of
a battle dress uniform a b TOU so then they

(42:17):
can retreat it and we have the retreatment for them.
So we're doing all the National Guards and stuff like that.
So the military had to have for methne on the
clothing and they tested it and treat the BDU with promethine.
It's absolutely it's as effective of anything you could have
put on your skin. So it was equal to one
hundred percent date on the skin. Permethrone on the clothing

(42:39):
is just as good. So what it does is well,
we talked, we'll maybe talk to mosquitos later. It will
repel the mosquitoes, it'll repel the flying insects. Is going
to repel them, the crawling insects who breath through their
abdomen that's going to kill them. So it really is
effective against fifty five different known species of insects, either

(43:02):
flying or crawling. So what that does is and when
you have that on your clothes, of course you're repelling
the mosquitoes and mats and stuff like that. But winter
tick crawls over one inch of that fabric, it's going
to die that day. Now. Because their metabolism is so slow,
they may crawl up your pant leg for another three,

(43:24):
four or five hours, but that's it.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
They're done.

Speaker 8 (43:26):
They're not going to bed, they're not going to transmit anything.
They just don't die instantly because of their metabolists to
being so slow. So the panic is out. If you've
seen them crawl an inch, But you got the usual things,
you know, tuck your pants into your socks. And they
also they always climb north, so you will find them
in the bushes. That's probably how they get on the deer.

(43:48):
So you do want to tuck your shirt into your
shorts and your pants as well, and anything. Long sleeves
are good. Light colors are good, so you could see
them and they're there. Obviously in camouflage you can't do that.
But if you if you know, we're hikers and whatnot
and it's hot out and we got shorts on. Then
then you move to the topical insect repellent. So you

(44:10):
put on the gray insect repellent and that will repel
the tick as well. It won't kill one.

Speaker 4 (44:19):
Thing that's amazing is just how much prevention you get
if you treat your footwear and your socks. I mean
it a lot of times when it heats up, people
don't realize, you know that just treating your your footwear
and your socks if you want to wear shorts and
hike or camp or you know, work around the yard,
it's uh, you know, I don't know the exact number,

(44:39):
but I guess it's somewhere around sixty prevention.

Speaker 3 (44:42):
Is that about right?

Speaker 5 (44:45):
Well?

Speaker 8 (44:45):
Yeah, that or more. We always say that the gardeners,
why wouldn't you treat a shawl or something like that
light thing they might want to wear away your gardening,
or like pants, you know, breatheable pants.

Speaker 7 (44:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (44:58):
It it will last for six weeks. One treatment lasts
six weeks, goes right through the washer and dryer. Gentle helps,
but it goes right through. It go in and out
of the water if you're you know, walking through creeks,
it doesn't make any difference. It kind of bonds to
the fabric, kind of like the ink in your shirt
would bond, except it's different and it fades the same
way UV light and harsh harsh wash, harsh dry. So

(45:22):
think of it like you know, the blue in your shirt.
It's going to act just like that when that fades.

Speaker 7 (45:27):
This is fhade.

Speaker 8 (45:28):
So you get six washes or seven weeks of UV light.
So if you come back and there's something that you
don't wash very often, like oh, you're hunting gear, you know,
your jackets and stuff like that, you're not washing them,
so you just put them in a dark closet and
it's not exposed to light.

Speaker 5 (45:47):
The clock stops.

Speaker 8 (45:48):
So these things can really last long on a tent
if you go hiking, if you go camping, you know,
a week, you got seven years of it working on
the tent and and all that stuff is good. You know.
One of the we talked about one of the big
big tips that for hunters, and it relates to hikers too.

(46:10):
When you go out hunting, you and you get your
prey from a squirrel or rabbit, a deer or whatever,
they got a lot of ticks on them. Deer's can
have hundreds of ticks on them. I mean they've counted
three hundred thousand on a mussel one time. And I'm
sure you heard earlier how much the ticks can really
affect the health of an animal biite because they take

(46:31):
all the blood out. But now you've shot it and
the body's cooling, what's going to happen to all those texts?
They're going to drop off? The free mail is over,
so when you load that in the back of your truck,
they're just going to fall off into the bed of
the truck. But if you take and put down a
canvas or a blanket that's treated with promethrone, all those

(46:52):
ticks are going to fall off. They're going to land
on the promethrone fabric and they're all going to dive.
When you get home, they're gonna be dying before you
get on me four or five hours, but they're all
going to die. So you're bringing home dead ticks, not
not a thousand live ticks that you have to deal
with in your house now, So the hikers can do
the same thing. You know, they're treating it, but Let's
say they want to sit down and have a picnic.
We'll take a bed net, treat the bed net with

(47:15):
the same thing, and you can pack it at ways
nothing you want to even know.

Speaker 5 (47:18):
It's a new thing.

Speaker 8 (47:19):
But you want to sit down in a rough area,
sit on top of the bed net, and you've created
a barrier. So plenty of ways to get extra protection
from the tick. And and again, promethronis the is the
primary way because it will kill that tick.

Speaker 5 (47:37):
Quick. I have money. Neither good tick is a dead tick, right, Kurt.

Speaker 8 (47:43):
We always say I'm on the trophy.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
Absolutely all right. I got to go to a quick break.
Here this break is presented. I'm also a properties Heart Realty.
Check them out an m L p H A r
T realty dot com.

Speaker 4 (48:00):
When it comes to permethrone use, let's inform the listeners
a little bit. I know sometimes people throw their hands
up with a big stop like, oh, don't spray that
on your skin. It's really bad for you. I hear
more negative comments about permethrone and what I need to
this has been going on for years. Tell us a

(48:22):
little bit about how promethrone works. When it comes to
the bonding of the clothing, and the fabric and why
folks don't need to spray it on their skin.

Speaker 8 (48:34):
Yeah, welcome to the world.

Speaker 5 (48:36):
At EPA.

Speaker 8 (48:36):
It's kind of been a misleading warning. You read the
back warnings, you think, oh my gosh, I'm in trouble,
But the same warnings on the back of spray paints
and everything else. So what happens is for methron does
not work on your skin. Your skin breaks it down
into an amino acid, and then pretty soon within ten
to fifteen minutes, you don't have it on your skin anymore.

(48:57):
It's gone. It's just dissolved and absorbed and gone. So
it's not like you know, people you can't spray it
on there and think like you put a deed or
a cart and spray on it. It's not going to
be there. So it's it's not dangerous to the skin.
It just doesn't work on the skin. But of course
they won't let us tell you that on the labels.
I had it there once but then they made change it.

(49:17):
But no, it binds to the fabric. Just again, think
of it as like you know, putting a dye in
your shirt. You know, make your tied eye shirts, you
put the colorant in there and that bonds to the fibers,
so you have to have fibers. So we can't do
airline I mean jet pilot suits because it's there's nothing

(49:40):
to bind to it. We can't do plastics. But you
can put on any fabric I mean you can do
if you want to. You can do your chairs on
the porch and keep mosquitoes away, not say ticks, that's
more of a mosquito thing. So it just binds and
it's going to stay there, and it's going to stay
there through the washes until it fades like your shirt

(50:02):
would phase or if it's got a lot of sunlight.
Also is what breaks down the molecules. Otherwise they're staying
on there, going in and out of the water. To
the gay difference, it's just going to stay there. So
again the tip is, you know, if you have like
your hunting clothes and you don't wear them every day
and you put them in a dark closet, it's going

(50:22):
to last for thirty five days of sunshine.

Speaker 4 (50:26):
And the great thing about that, Jim is Jim, when
we get out in the environments that we're in, this
is preventing us from mosquitos and chiggers and a lot
of other little pests, and it's just it's a good
overall way to go into a situation to where you're
not just treating your clothing for ticks. You're just everyone

(50:49):
hates being pestured by insects and bugs when it comes
to being in the outdoors. It doesn't matter who we are.
No one wants to have a day a field where
the bugs run us.

Speaker 8 (50:59):
Out right.

Speaker 5 (51:02):
Too.

Speaker 8 (51:03):
I mean it works on a dog. You don't spray
the cat, but the cat can lay on it once
to strive. So the farmers use permethrone all the time
on animals. The difference between the farm grade permethrone and
what we use is we're pharmaceutical grade, which means it's odorless.
Farmers could use the stuff they have, but you won't
want to take that honey because you're gonna smell like

(51:24):
an animal out there. So you know, there is a
grade permethrone which will work, but it doesn't have the
bonding effect that the ones that we do. We put
a bonding agent in there to go into the fabric,
and we're also orderless because we're pharmaceutical grades. So there
is a difference.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
Kurt, I have a question, and it'll seem odd, but
I'm sure you can answer it.

Speaker 5 (51:49):
There's a difference between boots.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
So many outdoors when wear rubber boots in addition to
those of us that were the leather boots, Well, the
rubber boots take the product, and how does that enter
into it?

Speaker 8 (52:04):
No, it won't. We got to have fabric to bind too,
So if it's plastic, it's slippery, it's not going to
bind to that.

Speaker 5 (52:11):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (52:12):
On that note, if you notice that a lot of
your rubber boots will have a neoprene material on them,
there is some cloth, not in all brands, but for example,
like I wear Lacrosse boots and there is a fiber
that the promethrone will go to, especially like on the

(52:32):
back where the adjustment is.

Speaker 3 (52:34):
It's good to treat that.

Speaker 4 (52:37):
In my opinion, because that's like Kurt was talking about.
It only takes going across an inch worth of treat
of material. And so if you've got that fabric there
to the top of your boot, it's it's a no brainer.

Speaker 3 (52:50):
It's absolutely no brainer.

Speaker 8 (52:53):
And tex don't have suction cups like some of the
insects do, so they're gonna have a hard time coming
up a rubber boot anyways. But but remember they're not
always in the grass. They're higher too, and they're coming
off the bushes. They always climb north. They have a
little mechanism. They're always going up, which is why you
know they're trying to find the back of your knees.
They can't do that. They look for the crowds. They

(53:15):
look for your armpits and they'll end up on the head.
They're looking for soft, dark material or skin where they
can embed, so they take what they can get. But
they're coming up, and that's why they're in the bushes.
So you're not safe. Just because you know the grass
is lower, there's no grass, they're gonna be in the bushes.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
Terms of the EPA warning on that substance. We need
to dispel something. I'll give an example of this when
I'm out and I'm scared of ticks. I don't mind
saying that, but I'm not paranoid about them because I
know how.

Speaker 5 (53:52):
To kill them with that substance.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
So I spray my socks, I spray my outdoor clothing
topped about, my pants, my undershirt, my shirts, my hat,
you know whatever, I can get that product tor and
You can do that continually and there's absolutely zero threat
of anything to you health wise from utilizing that product. Correct, correct,

(54:21):
once it's dried your gold is what I'm getting at.

Speaker 8 (54:25):
Well, you do want to do it where there's where
it's well aerated. I mean, you don't want to be
doing this in a clock and then breathe a whole
bunch of it in because it's not just the prometh
and there are other stuff in there to dispense it.
So yeah, you want to have a well done other area.
Now you know, people say I'm going someplace and how
am I going to do it when it's twenty degrees outside, Well,

(54:46):
you spread it and then you turn your dryer on
nice and hot, and you turn your dryer off and
you throw the clothes in there and that'll actually they'll
bond and dry inside the dryer even if it's twenty
degrees outside. Actually makes a better applicant because it melts.

Speaker 5 (55:00):
You know, that's a great tip. I've never heard that one.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
All Right, we got to get to the news break folks,
that's presented by SMI Marine.

Speaker 5 (55:08):
Go see them that day.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
Great care of all your boning needs, and remember you'll
never get soaked by my friends at SMI.

Speaker 5 (55:17):
Kert. I want to continue this conversation.

Speaker 2 (55:20):
About the garden, and I want to start by letting
you explain the differences between it and Deep, and before
we dive in this, I want to say I've used
Deep for years, but I've pulled away from it because
I'm never outdoors on a general basis where i don't
have sunglasses on.

Speaker 5 (55:42):
And other items.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
I don't like what it does to my gunstocks and
my barrels of my guns.

Speaker 5 (55:51):
It's it's kind of a problem in that regard.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
So if you don't mind tell folks the differences between them,
they both will protect you. But I think Cardon is
definitely coming all strong here.

Speaker 8 (56:06):
Yeah, we're We're the ones that have basically introduced the
picared into the to the US. It's it's big around
the world. DEED is more of a US type product
than the rest of the world. Deep works. They're both
going to work, but DEEED has some negatives to it,
and we we have we have a DEEP based time
release product, so we're familiar with DT as well. We

(56:27):
used to sell Deep until we got into the pcared
in business. D is a synthetic based out of petroleum,
and it is a plasticizer. Well, plasticizer means it's gonna
melt plastic. So there goes your gun stock, and there
goes your watch crystals and paint on your car and

(56:49):
all that kind of stuff. It's not harmful. People confuse
it and they think it's harmful. The reason they do
that is because if you have spray date, which obviously
do the very few lotions out there, it's got a
lot of alcohol in it to disperse it. And the
alcohol is what kind of irritates your skin and rips

(57:10):
it up. You use it seven days in a row
and you've got, you know, some pretty sore skin, but
not because of the deed. It was because of the alcohol.
So deed is perfectly effective. The one advantage it has
is it works at all dosages, So even two or
three percent date work, but ninety percent is gone within
the first couple hours, so people start with a little
higher numbers. The new the new one out there is

(57:33):
precared in which we were the you know, the lead
dog there. Right now, the big ones, big brands that
you know of, are going to be coming out. They're
going to follow since because they have to. It's too
good of a product. So it was came out of
the black pepper plant, so it's not synthetic and it
doesn't it doesn't plastiicize, it's not going to melt anything.
And you can wear it with your fancy hiking clothesure

(57:56):
you can. You know, don't worry about your watch crystals.
Don't worry about it anything. The one negative is that
it needs a little it's do sensitive, so you have
to have enough on. If you put it on too lightly,
it's not gonna work. When you put it on correctly,
you know, then boom. It's good for ten twelve hours.
But it's also very gentle because like you said, it's
not gonna mess with it with all your sensitive materials

(58:19):
and the plastics. So that's the up and coming. It's
gonna come over, you know. They don't these very little
deep in Europe, it's all forcared and under a different name.
They call it salpit in there, but it's really it's
the same thing. Canada they call it eye carred it
for whatever reason. They got three different names for it,
but we call it p carried it and you'll see

(58:41):
it everywhere.

Speaker 4 (58:43):
One of the great things while you're talking about the
application and coverage is.

Speaker 3 (58:48):
You've got just a pump spray.

Speaker 4 (58:50):
You've been saw And my favorite is the lotion, especially
the small individual packets, because you just never know and
it's great once again, you know, mosquitoes, ticks, whatever it's,
you never know when you're gonna need it. It's kind
of one of those things that preventative. Yes, on the ticks,
but all of us have been you know, pestered by

(59:12):
mosquito is at a fireworks outing or a cookout or
what have you.

Speaker 3 (59:16):
So it works based off of a barrier.

Speaker 4 (59:19):
Correct that and the how you're putting off of a
like a vapor barrier.

Speaker 8 (59:24):
Yeah, and it confuses the mosquito. They come and they
get lost, they don't know where they are. It's you know,
their radar is gone. But the other one that people
I know, we can't prove it because there's no study
to prove it, but inecdotedly we hear it all the time.
It's card and is far more effective against the biting
flies than that's no sums that you you know, ask
anybody in the Adirondecks in New York in June and

(59:46):
you can't even go outside that the old fighting flies
will drive you nuts. So we have no seams down here,
so we haven't been able to do a study to
prove it because it's nobody has a lab where you
can just test those things. But anecdotedly, we hear it
all the time it's the one to use against the flies.

Speaker 4 (01:00:03):
Well, my lab is in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont,
Kurt and I can tell you that it is absolutely
hands down my favorite product to use when it comes
to getting outdoors, and it's it's important that folks understand
too that there's there's always this part of education and awareness,

(01:00:24):
and we want to make sure that folks realize there's
a whole lot of problems that can come about if
they don't go through the preventative measures with treating their
clothing and their.

Speaker 8 (01:00:36):
Skin correct and and you know, all the things that
we talked about available on our website. We're Sawyer is
an educator, so I actually speak at medical conferences and
stuff like that. But go to Sawyer dot com and
anything we've talked about will be available there.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
All right, fellas, I'm gonna go to quick break here,
and this break is presented by SMI Marine. They are
eleven four hundred Westport Road, just north of the Gene Snyder.
Go see them take care of all your boating needs.
Remember you never get soaked at smi.

Speaker 8 (01:01:13):
Art.

Speaker 5 (01:01:13):
Heaven forbid someone has a tick on them.

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
I know you're experted advice about how to remove them
and what symptoms or other situations might lead you to
think you better go see a doctor right away.

Speaker 8 (01:01:31):
Yeah. The way this works is a tick hangs on
by a mouthpiece. It's called the hyposome, and the mouthpiece
has little barbs in it, not big barbs like fishing look,
but little barbs to keep it hanging on. And so
it's embedded into yours thinking very slowly. Obviously you can't feel.
Let's not look at mosquito bit. So it's in there,
and now you want to get it out. So remember

(01:01:53):
now we got that many many many hours, either up
to twenty four before they've traded fluids that can hangs
the bacteria that would make you sick. So you've got
a lot of time to get them out. Whether or
not an issue. So there's there's tech removal devices or
a simple tweezer will do. You don't want to have
the tick leave on its own that's called voluntary because

(01:02:14):
to loosen those barbs, it's going to spit in everything
that it has and there goes the bacteria with it.
So you're not going to put the cigarette butt on
it or covered up with vasoline and encourage it to leave.
You're going to just take tweezers or device slowly go
under it. Re membory. You can sneak up on them
pretty easily because they only breathe every fifteen minutes and
you just slowly, slowly, slowly guide them out. You don't

(01:02:37):
want to snap them out because you don't want to
leave the mouth she's in there. You just very slowly
gently pull them out, take you know, take long time
to do it, and then clean up the area with
some alcohol or in a septic way. Now, if you
think you've got something left in there, then you know,
maybe you have to. You know, you see it if
you get flu like symptoms in a day or two,

(01:02:58):
or the area kind of if you react to if
the area was then you go to the doctor. But
most times it isn't necessary. If you get there, you know,
you if you found it, it hadn't been there for a
few days. Yeah, and you can bring the tick with
you if you want. They can identify what stype it
is you talked about in the last hour, whether it's

(01:03:18):
going to carry the disease or not, and they know
the doctors know how to treat it. But the whole
thing is just don't panic. You got plenty of time.
Get it out gently.

Speaker 4 (01:03:28):
Kurt one of the viewers of the show listeners. His
question that he sent to me this week was why
do ticks now when he removes them, create so much
more of an.

Speaker 3 (01:03:43):
Itch than what they used to.

Speaker 4 (01:03:45):
Do you have any knowledge on that or what's going
on there?

Speaker 8 (01:03:52):
I don't. Your previous guests may have, But my guess
is it's your sensitivity to them more than them. They
don't have ant. Well, they have an anti coagulant in there,
you know, so it doesn't freeze up on them, kind
of like a mosquito would. It's not as active as
a mosquitos. They got a very big anti coagulant, So yes,
you would have a somewhat of an anti coagulant as

(01:04:12):
so your skin. As they're working their way in, they
don't want the skin to close up, so they're gonna
ant and they want the blood to flow free. But
it's not. It's more gentle, but if you're sensitive to it,
then that's going to be itchy.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
And I can tell you, fellas, as someone who's bitten
by hundreds and hundreds of ticks throughout my outdoor career.
I never will forget the first time I had my
first encounter.

Speaker 5 (01:04:41):
With seed ticks.

Speaker 2 (01:04:42):
Was it layd between the lakes back in the seventies,
early seventies, before we had products like you all have
had produced current and I had hundreds and hundreds on me.
A good friend of the show, Ed Morris, who's been
on with us. He and I were hunting together down there,

(01:05:03):
and ever since that time, when a tick bites me,
I'm on fire. And I'm sure it's from a histematic
reaction that I had because I had boils all over
me after that encounter.

Speaker 5 (01:05:16):
So this is something I guess that.

Speaker 8 (01:05:22):
So you developed the sensitivity to it.

Speaker 5 (01:05:24):
So yes, sir, yes, sir, in a in a big,
big way. Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
Curt back to the Mosquito and that situation. You know,
there's another disease we haven't talked about, and that's the
West Nile disease. And unfortunately I was exposed and contracted
that disease and it almost killed me. I mean it
was really really bad, and from bitten. From being bitten

(01:05:53):
by so many mosquitoes in my life, I don't hardly
feel I was on a bear hunting trip up in
Canada and I was doing a television show at the time,
and my camera man said, don't you feel all those
mosquitos on your neck? I said, no, I really don't.
I guess at points to the fact that I'm a
card carrying red neck. But what I'm getting at here

(01:06:18):
is a lot of times you don't know it, and
the cardian is such a great deterrent to that. I mean,
I want to return to what we spoke too earlier
because I want to reiterate it. If you use that,
you're not going to have these problems. You're not going
to get these diseases.

Speaker 8 (01:06:39):
Yeah, exactly, But again you use them together. So if
you have promethrone on the clothing, and if you're wearing
a hat, you put it on the hat. And you know,
if you got a backpack. I mean, mosquitoes are hoppers.
They don't flying very far. They'll they'll find you a
mile away, but it's gonna take a while to get there,

(01:06:59):
or if you've already agitated, they're all in the area anyways,
you know, don't walk through the mangroves. They're gonna go
right there. But they're gonna hop they don't. They don't
fly very well. That's short little things. So you give
them landing spaces, which is your clothes, your backpacks, your hat,
anything you have with you. Your tent is perfect if
you're hunt. If you're tenting, look at the size of

(01:07:21):
that insect repellent you have compared to yourself. And they're
gonna land on that tent. They're gonna die. If they
land on material that's treated for methane, they are going
to die. But they've they got a chance to bite
you first, but you know, hopefully you repel them before
they landed. So if you did put promethrone on your clothes,
the old military study was they did the clothing with

(01:07:43):
promethine and biting was great. Was eleven hundred and eighty
per hour. Can how do you like to be that
person that had to set the standard? So and when
they treated the clothing it was ninety five percent effective.
When they used one hundred percent date on the skin,
it was ninety five percent effective. When this is back
in the eighties when they put the two together, it

(01:08:04):
was ninety nine point eight percent effective. So they work together.
So you treat as much fabric as you have around you,
and you know, if you're hiking, you know certainly the
backpack and then when you come home, you're sticking in
a dark closet and the thing will last for thirty
five days in the sunshine, so get a lot of
use out of it. So both together, they work together.

Speaker 5 (01:08:30):
Absolutely, Kurt. There's another ugly.

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
Malady out there, an SGRD, which of course is in
the water in a lot of locales around the world,
which incidentally, you are at the forefront of helping develop
products that have developed product to help with that. But
tell folks a little bit about your water products and

(01:08:59):
how they can keep you safe drinking water out in
the wilderness.

Speaker 8 (01:09:03):
Yeah, well, we're kind of the king of that one.
We were very fortunate to come across the technology. It
comes from kidney dialysis. The same thing you use these
little hoses to clean the blood, you can clean water
with it. So it's a little hose and the U shape.
The water goes into the hose and comes out the end.
But the holes are so small that anything that makes

(01:09:23):
you sick can't get through it. Viruses, but they're not
in the water, so all the bacteria and the parasites
and you know, all those things cannot get through these fibers.
We're the highest level of filtration you can get. There
are other ones out there because everybody's copying us, but
we're the only ones that can assure you that you're
not going to get sick from the water you drink

(01:09:45):
if you go through a SOI your filter and we.

Speaker 3 (01:09:47):
Can't cheat too, Kurt. That's one thing. It's extremely cheap.

Speaker 8 (01:09:53):
Yeah, we have one on Amazon for thirteen dollars I
think it is. And these things last forever. I mean,
you can get one hundred thousand gallons out of these.
Just keep them clean, and we send a lot up
to Georgia and Kentucky and Tennessee forer Lean, you know,
right now in Texas we're sending mostly insect repellents because
that's what they need more than the water. But if

(01:10:14):
you have a boil ern I mean, you know, you
don't need to buy a bottle of water. You can
drink the water coming through your faucet. We'll make it
safe and have it there hurricanes, whatever. So and we
do that around the world because so many people, you know,
one third, you know, half the world dies will either
the mosquito bites or bad water. So we're kind of
right there in the forefront of both of those. So

(01:10:36):
we go into a village and we've put them on
clean water, and we wipe out ninety five percent of
all sickness within two weeks. The remaining is not from
the water, it's from other things. We save them twenty
percent of their income. We save hundreds of thousands of
babies lives every year because they're very susceptible to diarrhea

(01:10:58):
and all that stuff. We do about three four million
people a year, but we're about to crank it up.
We can give somebody ten years of clean water for
as little as twenty cents. I thinks twenty cents, and
you can give somebody clean water for ten twenty years.
So we're doing that now. We're working on countries. We've
done five countries border the border, so everybody in that

(01:11:20):
country is not sick anymore from the water. It's just
a game changer, and what an honor it is for
us to be able to do that, but we have
the only filter that you can really do that. You
can't you got to go into a village and say
you're not going to get sick if you use is filthy.
Other companies that say, well, you know, ten percent of
you're still going to get sick, but the other ninety
you're going to be better off. But we can't do that.

(01:11:41):
We have to make sure nobody can get sick. So
we got one hundred and forty different charities. You know,
some of the big ones Samaritans, Perse, I've read Cross Usism,
all the big ones, World Vision, stuff like that. And
we we're in eighty countries. We're in some of the
hardest countries you can imagine.

Speaker 7 (01:11:59):
They need it.

Speaker 8 (01:11:59):
We're in Yemen and North Korea, I ran, everybody needs water.
So one hundred and forty charities in eighty countries and
we're just cranking it up right now. So next one Honduras,
a couple of years from now, nobody in hon Duras
will be sick.

Speaker 2 (01:12:16):
Well, that's an amazing journey that you've had, Kurt, and
I think the world literally the world holds you an
immense thank you and sense of gratitude about what you've
done to protect people, and you all are still at
the cutting edge as we speak.

Speaker 5 (01:12:36):
I mean, I know that you've got a.

Speaker 2 (01:12:38):
Huge initiative that you're getting ready to do, and we'll
hopefully talk to you about that on the program at
another time. But just from Scott and myself, that's helf brother.

Speaker 8 (01:12:52):
Yeah. Well, if anybody wants to join us that we
have a Sawyer Foundation and every dollar donated to an
overseas project. We don't there's no overhead, Any overhead will
be covered by Sawyers.

Speaker 5 (01:13:04):
So and how do they reach you? How did they
reach you?

Speaker 8 (01:13:10):
Well, you can go to Sawyer dot com and forward.
We'll forward you over to the foundation or I just
saw your foundation dot org. I think it is maybe
dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:13:21):
Okay, it's the perfect us. Thanks getting for taking time
out of what I know is a very hectic schedule.

Speaker 5 (01:13:27):
We're indebted to you, sir, well and I see you.

Speaker 8 (01:13:31):
Thanks for helping us get the word

Speaker 2 (01:13:33):
Out, Yes, sir, all right, that's your wrap, folks, God
bless everybody.