Week 7 Tick Surveillance- Shawn Schwenn

 This past week had a lot of rainy days and I only had the opportunity to do a tick drag on Thursday, right before we had the 4th of July. I took a trip up to Stafford County, VA and went to two different sites, the Stafford Civil War Park and Crows Nest Natural Preserve Area. At Stafford Civil War Park, the ground was still a bit wet when I got there but under the trees it was good enough to collect ticks. I was able to collect 19 ticks, which were mostly lone star ticks. At Crows Nest Natural Preserve Area, the ground was still wet as well even at 12pm. The forest was not the most accessible and the amount of giant spider webs that I ran it made my skin crawl, but was unable to get any ticks in the forest oddly, but right outside forest I was able to get 5 ticks, mostly lone star ticks again. I had to cut that drag early due to a random pop up rain storm that completely soaked the area again.

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