I am not sure why the New England and the mid Atlantic states high such a high occurrence. For years I rarely saw deer ticks but had dog ticks on me all the time. Just the past couple years it seems to deer ticks have really taken off. This past February I participated in an annual controlled hunt for deer than my police department puts on in one of our county parks. They always check the deer for ticks and then do tests on them. It is scary just how common Lyme's disease is among those ticks.