The Boston Globe reports that winter ticks, which can attach by the tens of thousands to individual moose, are prospering as a result of higher temperatures and shorter winters that allow them to live longer. Unlike deer and other animals, moose are unable to remove the ticks from their bodies by grooming.

“The moose are being literally drained of blood,” Pete Pekins, chairman of the Natural Resources Department at the University of New Hampshire, told the Globe. “This is about as disgusting as it gets out there.”