Tadhgh Rainey has seen his share of bloodsuckers. As an entomologist at the Hunterdon County Health Services in Flemington, N.J., he’s the person to talk to about all things mosquitoes and ticks. But he had never seen anything like the infestation on a pet sheep in September 2017.
When he and his colleague entered the sheep’s enclosure, “we almost immediately got covered in ticks,” he says. “I couldn’t believe this sheep was alive.” It was covered in hundreds, maybe thousands, of ticks.