Extreme heat, wildfires taking a toll on ticks in Atlantic Canada — for now

If temperatures become too hot, much-maligned ticks are at risk of drying out. The parasites survive by retreating to moist areas like leaf litter and in the soil.

If temperatures become too hot, much-maligned ticks are at risk of drying out. The parasites survive by retreating to moist areas like leaf litter and the soil.

“Even though it’s dry on top, they can find little bits of moisture in the soil. This weather is not wonderful for them. They’re in hiding, waiting until it gets cooler and moister,” Vett Lloyd, Mount Allison University biology professor, told Global News.

The ongoing wildfires across Atlantic Canada also have an impact on the survival of ticks.

“When they burn close to the ground, they’re obviously burning everything there, and when the ticks are in the top layer of soil, they’re going to get crisped,” Lloyd said.

But while forest fires will incinerate the bugs for now, the effects are only in the short-term, as they will return as the land regenerates.

“A very large forest fire, it knocked off the ticks for a year, but as the land regenerated, you got more grasses, and the grasses brought in mice,” she explained. “The mice are what moved the ticks around locally.”

Over the past several weeks, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have banned residents from entering Crown lands, but this does not mean the parasites have been left without a food source.

“Mostly, what the ticks are getting their food from are wild animals,” Lloyd said. “People and pets, we’re called accidental hosts. From a tick’s point of view, blood is blood.”