Don’t be surprised if you see more ticks this season. Experts say recent warm winters have allowed them to increase in numbers.
Don’t be surprised if you see more ticks this season. Experts say recent warm winters have allowed them to increase in numbers.
In wooded areas like the reservoir in West Hartford, ticks are on the minds of visitors coming through.
“They make me scared. I mean, I know they can give you bad diseases,” Jackson Muskrat of West Hartford said.
For dog walkers, they’re making sure their furry friends get their tick medicine more often with experts saying they’re now found year-round in Connecticut.
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“I definitely, this winter, still found some ticks on my dogs, so definitely make sure he was still taking his medicine and continually keeping an eye out, especially on the warmer days,” Carly Grossman of Farmington said.
Goudarz Moulaei with the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station said the warmer and wetter winters have created conditions favorable for ticks, both native and invasive.
Moulaei estimated in the past, his lab saw around 50 tick samples between December to March, but that has changed dramatically.
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“Now, that number has increased to nearly 800 and some years greater than that,” he said.
He urges people to take precautions like using bug spray and wearing long pants to keep ticks away from their skin.
“They have to be aware of their surroundings, avoid activity in those wooded areas, tall grasses, brushy areas,” Moulaei said.
Measures visitors at the reservoir say they’ll be taking.
“Bug spray and then you should search yourself after going into the woods or being out in nature,” Grossman said.
Moulaei recommends that if you do find ticks on yourself or your pets, send them to the lab for testing to see whether they're carrying disease or not.
