As the seasons change, ticks are making their presence known once again.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
According to officials with the Erie County Health Department, they are seeing one to two ticks being brought in each week for testing or examination, which is consistent with what they have seen in previous years.<\/p>\n
However, the cold and wet weather has affected tick activity in the county.<\/p>\n
Ticks are tiny and can be difficult to spot right away. They are commonly found in wet, grassy, and scrubby areas, where they attach themselves to animals or people passing by. Ticks often cling to fur, clothing, or skin after brushing against shrubs or tall grass.<\/p>\n
Nick Christensen, an Environmental Health Expert with the Erie County, \u201cTicks don\u2019t really go after people for the most part. They are travelers, so they are looking to hang out on shrubs or grass and have something brush past it, and then they hook on to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to officials, tick season typically lasts from spring through late fall and early winter. They are most active when temperatures reach around 40 degrees. While a colder and wetter spring would usually reduce tick activity, experts with the health department said that has not necessarily been the case this year. In fact, they have seen ticks emerge earlier than in recent years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tick population should be lower with the cooler spring and wetter spring, but we are seeing temperatures above 40 degrees pretty consistently, so even though it feels cool to us, that\u2019s the type of weather ticks are going to be active\u201d, said Christensen<\/p>\n
Christensen recommend several ways to help prevent tick bites including, wearing long pants and long-sleeved shirts, choosing light-colored clothing to make ticks easier to spot, avoid walking through tall grass and brush when possible, and check yourself, children, and pets for ticks after spending time outdoors.<\/p>\n
If you find a tick attached to your skin, health experts recommend to remove it immediately using tweezers and seek medical attention if needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the seasons change, ticks are making their presence known once again. According to officials with the Erie…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[84599,2960,136,142,138,137,84856,2303,75637,84855,84854,84857],"class_list":["post-190410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-disease-prevention","tag-environmental-health","tag-erie","tag-erie-county","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-outdoor-safety","tag-public-health","tag-tick-bite","tag-tick-prevention","tag-tick-season","tag-weather-impact"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}