DEET is the most effective tick repellent. Apply it to pants or other areas of the lower body. To remove a tick, grasp it with blunt tweezers, as close to the skin as possible. Ticks are blood-feeding parasites of animals found throughout Colorado. They are particularly common at higher elevations.
Problems related to blood loss do occur among wildlife and livestock, but they are rare.
Ticks are most important because they can transmit diseases such as Colorado tick fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tularemia and relapsing fever. Lyme disease is an important tick-borne disease in much of the eastern United States. Fortunately, ticks known to transmit it are not known to occur in Colorado, and no confirmed cases have originated in the state. Some 30 species of ticks occur in Colorado. Table 1 lists the more common ones.