Louanne Macdonald has a peculiar hobby that takes her into the Chilliwack woods in search of blood-sucking parasites.

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It began several years ago when she found a tick embedded in her skin after a day of clearing brush near her home in Lindell Beach, on the southern shore of Cultus Lake. Over 25 years as a trail runner and hiker, she’d never found one on herself before. She began to check herself and her dogs after spending time outside, collecting the tiny eight-legged bugs in pill bottles and reporting them to eTick.ca, a website supported by the B.C. Centre for Disease Control that monitors ticks in Canada.

Blood-sucking parasites: B.C. hikers, campers and pet owners advised to check for ticks Back to video

“I would occasionally find them,” she said. “And then all of a sudden, last year and especially this year, they seemed to be everywhere, in places where they’ve never been before.”

This spring, Macdonald’s neighbours have been pulling them off their dogs after walks on community paths. A parent found one on their child at the playground.

On a Facebook page dedicated to camping in B.C., photos of engorged ticks show up between trip reports and campsite queries. And at his vet clinic in Maple Ridge, Dr. Adrian Walton said he’s seeing pets with tick bites two or three times a month on average, something he rarely saw 10 years ago.

But despite the tick talk, Disease Control Centre data shows tick reports have remained static in B.C. over the last decade, with variations from month to month and year to year depending on the weather.

While health officials said getting accurate numbers is a “complicated and complex task” because records come from public reports, they remain confident that tick populations are not exploding in B.C., while the risk of Lyme disease remains very low.

The number of tick reports across the province tripled in February compared to last year, up to 75 compared to 25 in 2025, but they were down again in the following months, said Muhammad Morshed, head of zoonotic diseases and emerging pathogens at the Disease Control Centre. So far this May, there have been between 150 and 200 tick reports compared to 300 last May.

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Nevertheless, Macdonald and her neighbour Angela Hauser, who was bitten by a tick in the Interior several years ago, want to see more tick education and awareness in B.C., particularly as the range of the arachnids is expanding globally due to climate change. Cases of Lyme disease, which is transmitted through tick bites, are also rising, from about 2,600 cases across Canada in 2019 compared to more than 5,200 in 2024.

Macdonald and Hauser were surprised the Disease Control Centre data doesn’t show an increase in ticks or Lyme disease in B.C. They recently picked five ticks off their dogs after a single walk.

sells a natural tick spray that she uses to protect herself and her pets. “I think that’s a lack of reporting.”

The Disease Control Centre joined eTick.ca in 2022 after a pilot project the year before, enabling people to take a picture of a tick and send it to scientists for identification. As a result, it has become easier to report ticks across B.C., leading to more data from parts of B.C. where there was little data in the past, like the northern part of the province.

But the eTick site relies on the public to recognize a tick, save it, photograph it, and submit it electronically using their cell phone. If someone flicks a bug off their arm, or it’s washed down the drain during a shower, it isn’t counted.

To determine if a tick is infected with Lyme disease, it must be saved and taken to a doctor or vet, who can submit it to the Disease Control Centre for testing.

Morshed said Lyme disease is present in less than 0.3 per cent of ticks in B.C. and remains “very rare.” Of the 39 cases in B.C. last year, eight are believed to have come from a tick bite acquired in the province, while the majority were acquired outside the province. In comparison, there were 17 total cases in B.C. in 2024, and 39 total cases in 2016, the same number as 2025.

But the scientist urges people to protect themselves against tick bites. In addition to Lyme disease, the bugs can carry anaplasmosi, babesiosis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever and a few other pathogens. There is also concern about the slow northern migration of southern tick species. B.C. has prepared its labs to identify ticks known to cause alpha-gal syndrome, a red meat allergy caused by a Lone Star tick bite, but has not seen any cases yet, he said.

Morshed advises anyone going out in the woods to use DEET, wear a hat and clothing that covers the limbs, and to check for ticks after being outside.

“It is a very serious condition,” he said of Lyme disease. “I would be very, very cautious.”

Ticks typically pass on the disease after being on a host for 24 hours during a “blood meal.” Once they are filled with blood, they regurgitate some of it, causing pathogens that are in their midgut to mix with their saliva and be injected into the host’s bloodstream.

Walton said he recommends medication for dogs to prevent tick bites. Like humans, pets can get Lyme disease and suffer from a fever and general sickness before recovering.

But some people and pets who are infected have long-term complications.

The vet said he’s concerned about the increase in various diseases that come with warmer winters and climate changes.

“We didn’t really have a winter,” he said. “It wasn’t cold enough for some of these parasites to die.”

Morshed said ticks are capable of surviving in low temperatures and don’t normally die off even in the coldest B.C. winters, but they are sensitive to cold and heat. When temperatures are above 12 C, the arachnids move above the leaf layer, where they can more easily attach themselves to a passerby, like a hiker, gardener or dog. Longer summers and milder winters create favourable conditions for the bugs, which often live three seasons, requiring a blood meal to move from larvae to nymph to adult, which are capable of laying thousands of eggs.

The scientist was not surprised to hear that dozens of ticks had been found near Cultus Lake. Because they do not move very much over a lifetime, it is not uncommon to find colonies of ticks in one area, but very few a short distance away, he said.

Melissa Dressler said she recently found a tick the size of a black peppercorn on her dog’s eyelid after camping at Cultus Lake over the long weekend. Her family checked themselves and their two dogs for ticks each night before bed, but must have missed one. She noticed it when they returned home.

“I picked up my dog to give him a cuddle and noticed a grayish-coloured blob by his upper eyelid,” she said.

Using online instructions and a tweezer, she carefully pulled out the tick, ensured the head was intact, bagged the tick and took a picture, which she sent to eTick.ca.

“This is the first tick both my husband and I have ever encountered in our lives and we both grew up camping,” she said.

gluymes@postmedia.com