{"id":4301,"date":"2026-07-25T17:05:32","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T17:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uspropertymoves.com\/?p=4301"},"modified":"2026-07-25T17:05:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T17:05:32","slug":"the-vegan-vampire-tick-terrorizing-marthas-vineyard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uspropertymoves.com\/?p=4301","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cVegan Vampire\u201d Tick Terrorizing Martha\u2019s Vineyard"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n<\/p>\n
\n

\n\tIt\u2019s a story Hollywood has told before: A fearsome predator with a taste for human blood terrorizes an island off the coast of Massachusetts, threatening to ruin the summer tourist season as residents scramble to figure out how to deal with the problem. There\u2019s even a shaggy-bearded off-islander, an academic expert who has arrived to help find a solution.<\/p>\n

Read more MrBeast\u2019s Newest Battle: Granting Wishes for Kids Battling Cancer (With Assist From LeBron James)<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tExcept this predator isn\u2019t a 25-foot, three-ton great white shark. It\u2019s a tick about the size of a poppy seed. And while its bite probably won\u2019t kill you, it could make you allergic to red meat and dairy \u2014 the symptoms can range from mild stomach distress to full anaphylactic shock \u2014 which, to some Vineyard foodies, might seem worse than death.<\/p>\n

\n\tLife on Martha\u2019s Vineyard, the celebrity enclave where Spike Lee, Larry David, Meg Ryan, Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen, and Barack and Michelle Obama have all owned homes \u2014 and where Steven Spielberg once filmed Jaws<\/em> \u2014 has been upended by the arrival of the lone star tick and the alpha-gal syndrome its bite can cause.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe epidemic has left residents wondering when it will be safe to go back into their own backyards, trading shorts and flip-flops for insecticide-treated pants and socks, and reworking restaurant menus while inspiring an abundance of harebrained schemes for dealing with the problem like an outdoor Roomba for ticks (no joke).<\/p>\n

\n\tPreviously confined largely to the Southeast, the lone star tick \u2014 identifiable by the white dot on its back \u2014 began migrating north and west in the 1980s, but its population started exploding around 2011, about the same time scientists identified alpha-gal syndrome as a condition. The Vineyard has proved especially hospitable: Despite its image as a crowded beach resort, much of the island\u2019s interior remains thick forest, wild fields and overgrown thickets that are home to a huge deer population on which the ticks love to feast.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe island has seen cases of alpha-gal skyrocket in recent years. In 2020, Martha\u2019s Vineyard Hospital ran just nine alpha-gal tests; last year, it ran more than 1,600, with 44 percent coming back positive. And those are only the tests conducted at MVH. Experts believe the real number is much higher since the figure doesn\u2019t include summer residents who get tested back home.<\/p>\n

\n\tComplicating matters further are what tick epidemiologist Lea Hammer calls the \u201cconsistently inconsistent\u201d symptoms and reactions, which vary widely from person to person. The common denominator is an allergy to red meat, but some people get hit with the double whammy of meat and dairy. Many who are bitten never develop an allergic reaction at all, while others become so sensitive that merely smelling hamburger smoke can set off a painful response. Sometimes the allergy doesn\u2019t appear until days or weeks after the initial tick bite, which is why alpha-gal is often misdiagnosed as food poisoning. For some, symptoms don\u2019t set in until hours after eating meat; in other cases, the allergy can fade over time, returning people to normal, or it can persist for years.<\/p>\n

\n\tAll of this has forced the island to reorient itself. Restaurants are introducing alpha-gal-friendly menus and tweaking recipes to accommodate the allergic. Red Cat Kitchen in Oak Bluffs replaced the buttermilk brine in its popular fried chicken with mustard, while Pawnee House flags an array of alpha-gal-friendly dishes \u2014 including salmon Wellington and falafel burgers \u2014 with an \u201cAG\u201d on its menu. Chilmark General Store, already part of Vineyard lore as the site of David\u2019s 2021 confrontation with Trump supporter Alan Dershowitz, has introduced a cheeseless, alpha-gal-safe version of its popular pizza. Even coffee shops \u2014 and the island seems to have nearly as many of them as deer \u2014 have gotten into the mix with dairy-free iterations of cookies and pastries.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe syndrome hasn\u2019t had a huge impact on either buyers or renters, at least according to Abby Rabinovitz, principal broker at Tea Lane Associates, who has an obvious stake in the island\u2019s continued desirability. Rabinovitz says the threat of alpha-gal has not dissuaded buyers from purchasing homes, even in heavily wooded, tick-prone areas.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cPeople buy houses in one part of the island for lots of reasons,\u201d she says, \u201cbecause it\u2019s where they\u2019ve visited for years or friends live nearby or they like the beaches there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRabinovitz, who has lived on the Vineyard full time for a quarter century, acknowledges that alpha-gal regularly comes up in conversations with her year-round friends, though she characterizes the talk as mostly practical. She compares the precautions to the earthquake preparations Angelenos take, arguing that everyone faces some hazard wherever they live and that education and common-sense preparation can help avoid the worst outcomes.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m an optimist,\u201d she says, predicting that five years from now, the situation will be much improved.<\/p>\n

\n\tUnlike in Jaws<\/em>, there\u2019s no Quinn or Brody to come up with a simple solution \u00ad\u2014 blowing up the enemy with a compressed-air tank isn\u2019t much of an option when it\u2019s the size of a freckle. But, thankfully, there is a Hooper: tick biologist Patrick Roden-Reynolds, who took over as director of the Martha\u2019s Vineyard Tick Program in 2022. He even looks the part, dressed in safari khakis and dragging a white flag across the bushes to pick up ticks for examination.<\/p>\n

\n\tRoden-Reynolds knows people are concerned. He has crisscrossed the island hosting educational sessions and heard everything from fearful visitors reconsidering trips to wild proposals for eliminating the ticks \u2014 including, yes, a fleet of outdoor Roombas.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere are a lot of angry people, a lot of stressed-out people and a lot of fearful people\u201d who are \u201cdesperate for any solution,\u201d he acknowledges during his presentations.<\/p>\n

\n\tHis advice is straightforward: prevent tick bites, starting with long pants and long sleeves treated with permethrin. The precautions appear to work; despite wading into swarms of ticks every day for years, Roden-Reynolds has never developed alpha-gal. As for the larger problem, he argues that there is no quick fix and worries about the side effects of increased spraying. He favors culling the island\u2019s deer population, depriving the ticks of their favorite hosts.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou want my bold opinion?\u201d he offered recently in an interview with Martha\u2019s Vineyard Magazine<\/em>. \u201cI feel like we are going to have to eat our way out of the tick problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Luke Bracey Embraces Pa\u2019s Faults in \u2018Little House on the Prairie\u2019: \u201cWe Didn\u2019t Want Him to Be Perfect\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A "vegan vampire" tick is terrorizing Martha's Vineyard. Here's how businesses are fighting back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2919,2920],"class_list":["post-4301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting","tag-marthas-vineyard","tag-mary-steenburgen"],"yoast_head":"\nThe \u201cVegan Vampire\u201d Tick Terrorizing Martha\u2019s Vineyard - US Property Moves<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/uspropertymoves.com\/?p=4301\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The \u201cVegan Vampire\u201d Tick Terrorizing Martha\u2019s Vineyard - US Property Moves\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A "vegan vampire" tick is terrorizing Martha's Vineyard. 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