By Arianna Myers
Special to The Record
Each year, with the arrival of warmer temperatures and as people spend more time outdoors, public health authorities remind people across Canada to frequently check themselves and their pets for ticks.
According to Jade Savage, a professor in the department of biological sciences at Bishop’s University, in the last few decades, the number of ticks in the Eastern Townships has been increasing steadily.
This is a result of warmer temperatures and habitat changes caused by urban development, which give tick populations a better chance of finding hosts such as rodents and deer, making them more prevalent in Southern Quebec. In the next few decades, certain tick species in Canada are expected to rapidly expand their geographical range even further north.
Dr. Savage, who has been studying ticks for nearly seven years now, created the website eTick.ca in 2014. The website is “a free public platform for image-based identification and population monitoring of ticks in Canada.”
