SMITHTOWN, Long Island (WABC) -- "Don't let a tick make you sick."

That's the message doctors across the country are spreading after discovering that tick bites are on the rise.

The CDC estimates 500,000 people in the U.S. will get Lyme disease this year, and all it takes is a single tick bite.

Wildlife experts say, from what they are seeing, it could be a rough season.

"Charlotte," a deer at Sweetbriar Nature Center in Smithtown, is like all the animals here, who are cared for and checked daily for ticks.

It's not hard to see the evidence of tick bites as Charlotte turns her head.

Those who work at the center told Eyewitness News that what they haven't seen until now, is an alarming concentration of ticks. In fact, a fawn from Kings Park had so many, there was little they could do,

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