Middlebury Assistant Professor David Allen prepares to inspect a piece of canvas dragged through the forest to collect ticks.
Todd Balfour/Middlebury College
A tick expert explains his work trying to understand why the abundance of the parasites vary so much from location to location and year to year.
A female blacklegged deer tick crawls along a piece of straw.
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Ticks are generally inactive in the winter and start to look for their next meal as temperatures warm up. But as winters warm, every season may become tick season.
Expansion of the blacklegged and other tick populations across Canada over the last few years mean an increased risk of diseases like Lyme disease. It is wise to do a full body tick check on ourselves and our pets when we come in from the outdoors.
(Shutterstock)
Fall is peak activity time for adult blacklegged ticks, increasing the risk of tick bites on both people and pets.