Ticks, other factors tied to cattle, deer deaths Associated Press - April 16, 2009 5:35 PM ET
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) - State Veterinarian Dustin Oedekoven (OH'-dih-koh-ven) says ticks, severe weather and other factors appear to have contributed to cattle, horse and deer deaths in an isolated area of southwestern South Dakota.
Oedekoven says that after the Animal Industry Board received calls about unexplained animal deaths in an area south of Interior, local veterinarians worked with laboratories to seek a diagnosis. He says it appears that a number of factors including ticks, snowstorms and a lack of nutrition contributed to cattle deaths.
A heavy infestation of a species of ticks known as the winter tick was found on many of the animals. Oedekoven says ticks were part of the problem, but probably not the main cause of the cattle deaths.
The veterinarian says ticks can cause cattle to become weak so they are more susceptible to the cold, wind and snowstorms that have hit the area, particularly if the animals lack sufficient nutrition.
Oedekoven says some people were worried about anaplasmosis (An-ah-plaz-MOH-sis), a tick-borne disease that causes anemia. But he says that disease has not been identified in any samples from the dead cattle.
Ixodes Dermacentor albipictus - Winter tick, Moose tick or Elk tick
Posted by northstar (Member # 7911) on :
Isolation of Borrelia burgdorferi (Spirochaetales: Spirochaetaceae) from Ixodes scapularis and Dermacentor albipictus ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) in Oklahoma.
J Med Entomol. 1992 Jul;29(4):630-3.Links Isolation of Borrelia burgdorferi (Spirochaetales: Spirochaetaceae) from Ixodes scapularis and Dermacentor albipictus ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) in Oklahoma. Kocan AA, Mukolwe SW, Murphy GL, Barker RW, Kocan KM.
College of Veterinary Medicine, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater 74078.
Borrelia burgdorferi was isolated from Ixodes scapularis Say and Dermacentor albipictus Packard that were removed as partially fed adults from white-tailed deer, Odocoileus virginianus Zimmermann, in Oklahoma.
Isolation in media was accomplished only after homogenates of pooled field-collected ticks were inoculated into laboratory-reared Peromyscus leucopus and reisolated from the urinary bladder into BSK II media.
Both isolates were confirmed by western blot analysis and reactivity with monoclonal antibody H5332.
These are the first reported isolates of B. burgdorferi from Oklahoma from these two tick species and are the first isolates from ticks from the south-central United States that were infective for laboratory-reared P. leucopus. ------------------ /the abstracts I have read limit this to ruminants, and there is no record of human infection.
J Agromedicine. 2002;8(2):25-32.Links A ten-year study of tick biting in Mississippi: implications for human disease transmission. Goddard J.
Mississippi State Department of Health, Jackson 39215, USA.
To determine exactly which tick species bit people in Mississippi, information was gathered on ticks involved in human biting cases for the ten-year period, January 1, 1990-December 31, 1999.
Specimens were identified by the author and, in most cases, confirmed by personnel at the Institute of Arthropodology and Parasitology, Georgia Southern University.
A total of 119 ticks were recovered from 73 humans during the study period.
Seven tick species were represented; most common included the lone star tick, Amblyomma americanum, the gulf coast tick, A. maculatum, the American dog tick, Dermacentor variabilis, and the black-legged deer tick, Ixodes scapularis.
Interestingly, no immature Ixodes scapularis were collected. there were several unusual records.
Twelve larvae of Amblyomma tuberculatum, a species associated with the gopher tortoise, were removed from a patient.
Two Dermacentor albipictus larvae were collected from an elderly woman with no travel history except her backyard.
One Dermacentor sp. nymph, removed from a man in central MS, was not even a North American species.
One adult female Dermacentor variabilis was involved in a clinical case of tick paralysis.
These findings indicate that, although we know which tick species are common human biters, unusual/unreported tick-human interactions may be more common than we think.