Expert to present ‘Ticks on the Move’

SALISBURY — “Ticks on the Move and What to do About Them,” presented by Dr. Kirby Stafford, chief and state entomologist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, will be held on Saturday at 4 p.m. at the Scoville Memorial Library.

The increasing prevalence of Lyme disease and the emergence of other tick-associated human diseases in the United States have become a major public health concern.

Stafford has spent a considerable part of his life studying one insect, Ixodes scapularis, commonly called the deer tick. Few people who live in northwest Connecticut can claim to have never had an encounter with one of them, and unfortunately most people are all too familiar with the sometimes devastating symptoms and consequences of Lyme disease.

Stafford is Chief Entomologist of the Department of Entomology and State Entomologist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station.

He first joined the experiment station in 1987 and began his research on ecology and control of the blacklegged or deer tick, with a more recent focus on natural, biological, and integrated tick control.

Stafford has authored or co-authored dozens of articles about ticks and

produced a Tick Management Handbook.

A wide variety of prevention and control strategies have been adapted or investigated to reduce human risk of disease, but Stafford says that “field studies incorporating integrated pest management, ecological, and human behavior concepts are limited.”

During his talk, Stafford will highlight the prevalence of tick-borne pathogens, human risk of tickborne disease, the status of tick management research, and present some of the work being conducted at

the Experiment Station.

The program will be held in the library’s Wardell Room and is free and and open to the public.

The Scoville Memorial

Library is located at 38 Main St., Salisbury.

For information and registration, call 860-4352838 or visit scovillelibrary.org