Biologist Grant Hokit surveys mountain meadows in Montana by dragging a flannel cloth to collect questing ticks. Captured ticks are returned to his Helena lab for species identification, commonly Rocky Mountain wood ticks. Shorter winters and warming temperatures lengthen tick activity and enable range expansion, allowing species such as deer ticks to appear in northeastern Montana. Deer ticks transmit Lyme disease and other pathogens that can infect people. Infectious disease specialist Dr. Neil Ku notes patients often present only after becoming ill, with fever, chills and nonspecific symptoms consistent with many infections.
A hiking path crosses the expanse of long grasses and berry bushes. As Hokit walks the path, he carries a handmade tool made out of plastic pipes taped together that hold a large rectangle of white flannel cloth. He jokes that this device is "sophisticated," but the scientific survey is quite serious: He's sweeping the cloth over the shrubs and grass, hoping that "questing" ticks will latch on.
Along the summer trail, ticks dangle from blades of grass, sticking their legs out and waiting for a passing mammal. "We got one," Hokit says. "So that came off of this sedge grass right here simply pick them off with our fingers. We've got a vial that we pop them in." Any captured ticks will go back to Hokit's lab in Helena for identification.
As human-driven climate change makes winters shorter, ticks are spending less time hibernating and have more active months when they can hitch rides on animals and people. Sometimes the ticks carry themselves and diseases to new parts of the country. Hokit found deer ticks for the first time earlier this year in northeastern Montana. Deer ticks are infamous for transmitting Lyme disease and can infect people with other pathogens.
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