Tick numbers in Alberta expected to be high in 2024 [Video]

The mostly warm winter and thin snow may have helped one of Alberta’s least lovable creatures: ticks.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to find it’s a bad year for the moose tick,” says Janet Sperling, an entomologist and president of the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation.

She says past research has shown a bump in tick numbers following strong El Niño years.

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Karen Marsh and Carl Johns discovered a gruesome patch on their driveway in Bragg Creek last week after returning from vacation.

It appears to be a deer or a moose bed, but it’s flecked with blood spots. Closer inspection showed it was also littered with engorged ticks.

“About the size of coffee beans and there’s 20 or 30 of these but there was blood all around,” says Johns.

In extreme cases, infested deer and moose …