Warmer weather returned to Maine this week — and so did the deer ticks.

Griffin Dill, Tick Lab manager at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, said on Tuesday that the lab had not yet received any submissions of dead ticks for its monitoring and research programs, but he expects they will get them soon.

“Anecdotally, we are hearing reports this week of people saying they’ve seen ticks crawling on themselves and their pets,” Dill said. “What is emerging now are adult deer ticks who have survived the overwinter and are now looking for a blood meal.”

Deer ticks can transmit Lyme disease and other illnesses to humans. Maine logged a record 4,257 Lyme disease cases in 2025, and also reported 1,604 anaplasmosis and 352 babesiosis cases, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Lyme disease is a bacterial infection that, if detected, can be treated with a course of antibiotics. Symptoms vary, but can include a bull’s-eye rash, fever, headache, fatigue, joint and neck pain and swollen lymph nodes. Anaplasmosis, a bacterial infection, and babesiosis, a parasitic infection, have similar symptoms to Lyme disease.

So far in 2026, Maine has reported 264 cases of Lyme disease, four anaplasmosis and seven babesiosis cases, according to the Maine CDC. The bulk of this year’s cases are expected to occur from spring through fall, when ticks become more active and people are more likely to be outside.

“With melted snow and temps in the 40s, we can expect adult deer ticks to be coming back out,” Lindsay Hammes, a Maine CDC spokesperson, said in a statement. “Ticks can be active any time it is above freezing.”  

Dill said the winter likely did not dent tick populations.

“We had cold stretches, but all of those cold stretches were preceded or accompanied by snowfall. With plenty of snow on the ground, that provides an insulating layer for the ticks to survive,” Dill said.

Over the past 15 years, ticks have extended their range to farther north, Down East and inland Maine, and the state has experienced increasing Lyme disease cases, according to research and state data. Climate change is likely a contributing factor, scientists have said.

Dill said those who spot the arachnids now are almost certainly seeing deer ticks. Dog ticks, which typically emerge in April and peak in June, are not yet active, Dill said. They are not known to transmit diseases to humans in Maine, but Dill said they are constantly monitoring to determine if that is changing.

“Dog ticks are more of a nuisance than a public health threat in Maine,” Dill said.

For the deer ticks, the adults die later in the spring and ticks in the nymph stage — which are the size of a pinhead and difficult to see — are more prevalent in June and July, Dill has said. There’s typically a reprieve of tick activity in August, and adult deer ticks emerge in the fall.

To minimize chances of exposure, apply tick repellant, wear long-sleeved clothing when hiking, tuck pants into socks and put clothes immediately into the dryer when returning, according to the Maine CDC. Watch for ticks when moving firewood or raking leaves, and do tick checks, including on pets.

Pets can be protected with preventive medicine, and there’s also a Lyme disease vaccine for dogs. Researchers, including at MaineHealth, have tested Lyme disease vaccines for humans.