ASSOCIATED PRESS • March 22, 2022
New research shows ticks that can transmit Lyme disease have been increasing in abundance in a forest in the state’s Midcoast over the last three decades, according to researchers with a Maine university and hospital. Researchers from the University of Maine and Maine Medical Center Research Institute’ collected ticks from small mammals in Holt Research Forest in Arrowsic to track prevalence. When they first started they didn’t find the deer ticks feeding on animals such as mice and voles. The first one was found on a squirrel in 1996. A population of the ticks was established by 2007. The emergence of ticks could be linked to climate change and the increase of the area’s population of deer.