MILWAUKEE — Any traditional thought that tick season doesn’t really start in Wisconsin until temperatures consistently climb needs to go by the wayside, officials say.

“Ticks have been active for quite a while now,” said P.J. Liesch, the director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab. “It’s something that can often catch folks off-guard. We might not be thinking about ticks in those winter months — January, February, March — but once temperatures get above freezing consistently and we maybe hit 40-degrees with no snow on the ground, ticks can be active.”

As certain ticks could spread various diseases, Lyme disease included, Liesch said it’s important to remove the tick if bitten and try not to discard it.

“Any time you’re bitten by a tick, it’s really important to remove that tick properly,” Liesch said. “Save the tick until you get it identified, and the reason I say that is not all of our ticks carry the same threats — the tick of concern would be the black-legged tick or the deer tick because of the Lyme disease and a few other things it can transmit.”

Watch the full interview above.