Former firehouse sale moving forward

When we hear ‘invasive species’ around here we think of Oriental Bittersweet strangling trees, Japanese Knotweed clogging riverbanks, Purple Loosestrife choking wetlands, and Emerald ash borer beetle decimating our ash trees. These are threats to our environment that are visible from almost every road, path or hiking trail across the northwest corner of Connecticut. These are introduced species that adapted to our local climate, out-competed our native flora and fauna, and occupied the ecological niche formerly home to local native species.

What is invisible from your car window as you pass across the region is another invasion, one with big health consequences. It is an invasion of infectious disease driven by arthropods that act as disease vectors arriving in our county from elsewhere. Some of the most closely watched arrivals are the new tick vectors that have spread to southern Connecticut in the last couple of years. Most of us are familiar with the black-legged deer tick which has been in Connecticut for millennia and transmits Lyme Disease, Anaplasma, Babesia and Powassan Virus in mice, birds, deer and humans. What few realize is that there are three new tick species that have arrived in the state enabled by the rising global temperatures, movement of host species carrying tick passengers, and human disruption of habitat allowing the new arrivals to become established.