Experts at Southern Research, a non-profit health organization based out of Birmingham, said Alabama’s mild winter was warm enough for ticks to survive until spring. This means there will be more of them around, including the Black-Legged Tick, notorious for spreading Lyme Disease.

Auburn researcher Emily Merritt, a recent graduate of the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, grew up in New York state, a tick infested part of the country, and is very familiar with the realities of tick-borne illnesses. "When I moved to Alabama to pursue a master's degree at Auburn University, I realized that there was a problem with ticks and tick-borne illnesses here," she said, "but no one really talked or knew about it."