NYT As temperatures rise, ticks of several kinds are flourishing in ways that threaten people’s health. Lately, Shannon LaDeau and her colleagues have had unwelcome visitors at their office in New York’s Hudson Valley: ticks, crawling up the building and trying to get through doors.
“Which is kind of alarming,” said Dr. LaDeau, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies who studies the arachnids and the pathogens they carry.
As winters get warmer, ticks of several kinds are flourishing. Deer ticks, known for transmitting Lyme disease, are moving farther north. The longhorned tick, which came from overseas, has gained a foothold on the East Coast and begun moving west. Gulf Coast ticks have made it to states like Connecticut and Indiana. The lone star tick, which can make people allergic to red meat, is fanning out from the South and has been found as far as Canada.
And even in places long accustomed to them, ticks are becoming more numerous and active for longer stretches of each year.
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