Ticks

[Hburns]

Hi all,

I'm currently working on a research project looking at tick distribution and the species they commonly affect, with a focus on public health and wildlife management in the Cumbria region.
As deer stalkers, you’re often the first to notice changes in tick activity and host species, so your insights would be hugely valuable. I’ve put together a short survey (only takes a few minutes), and I’d really appreciate it if you could take part:

Survey on Tick Populations

Thank you for taking the time to complete this questionnaire. This questionnaire is part of an undergraduate research study at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan). The study aims to assess tick distribution in the Cumbria Peninsula using ecological data from farmers and nature reserves...

forms.gle

Feel free to share it with others in the stalking or countryside community—every bit of data helps build a clearer picture.
Thank you all.

 

[AlexD]

I have never seen a year like this one for ticks. Numbers around Edinburgh are orders of magnitudes higher than I can ever remember, and I mean that literally.
As a researcher, I have a question: much that I love seeing deer and keeping a moderate population, I am contemplating removing all the deer and foxes from one farm where tick numbers are just off the charts.
Even washing with no-tick, covering myself with Pemethrin before going out, I still come back with ticks when visiting them.
There are rabbits on that farm, and I intend reducing them to as low numbers as possible as well, though rabbits rarely seem to get ticks - there is something blotching their skins when skinning them.
I don't think there are enough birds landing in those fields to maintain a feeding cycle.
Would maintaining zero numbers of deer and fox for two years, be enough to eliminate the ticks by breaking their host feeding cycle?

 

[VSS]

I have never seen a year like this one for ticks. Numbers around Edinburgh are orders of magnitudes higher than I can ever remember, and I mean that literally.
As a researcher, I have a question: much that I love seeing deer and keeping a moderate population, I am contemplating removing all the deer and foxes from one farm where tick numbers are just off the charts.
Even washing with no-tick, covering myself with Pemethrin before going out, I still come back with ticks when visiting them.
There are rabbits on that farm, and I intend reducing them to as low numbers as possible as well, though rabbits rarely seem to get ticks - there is something blotching their skins when skinning them.
I don't think there are enough birds landing in those fields to maintain a feeding cycle.
Would maintaining zero numbers of deer and fox for two years, be enough to eliminate the ticks by breaking their host feeding cycle?

I doubt it, unless you're going to remove all the small rodents too.

 

[AlexD]

I doubt it, unless you're going to remove all the small rodents too.

I thought rabbit ticks are a different species of tick, and specific to rabbits and rodents. In the Americas it is Haemaphysalis leporispalustris, but not sure what it is in the UK.

There are hundreds of different species of tick, and it is the species that live on deer and people that I wish to reduce: Ixodes ricinus (sheep or deer tick). It is the deer tick that carries the bacteria that can cause Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferi and B. mayonii, as well as s.l., Anaplasma, Babesia, tick-borne encephalitis virus and louping ill virus. According to Wikipedia, they can also sensitise a person to mammalian red meat (and derived-products), known as alpha-gal allergy.

By the way, found one can get doxycycline online from UK pharmacies, as getting an appointment with my GP now has the same odds as winning a lottery ticket. If anyone needs the details, PM me, if the no-tick wash and permethrin spray has failed.

Another by the way, I met a chap the other day, who suggested Lyme disease was created artificially and escaped, just like CoVid. I had not heard that before, but the person was not a conspiracy theory type of chap, so googled "Lyme disease laboratory origin", and was dumbfounded, though genetically it has been about for millenia: Genomic insights into the ancient spread of Lyme disease across North America - Nature Ecology & Evolution.

I also came across the list of pathogens associated with each type of tick: an alarming list showing a lot more diseases carried by ticks than just Lyme disease and (overseas) encephalitis. Types of Ticks - LymeDisease.org

 

[VSS]

I thought rabbit ticks are a different species of tick, and specific to rabbits and rodents. In the Americas it is Haemaphysalis leporispalustris, but not sure what it is in the UK.

There are hundreds of different species of tick, and it is the species that live on deer and people that I wish to reduce. It is the deer tick that carries the bacteria that can cause Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferi and B. mayonii.

By the way, found one can get doxycycline online from UK pharmacies, as getting an appointment with my GP now has the same odds as winning a lottery ticket. If anyone needs the details, PM me, if the no-tick wash and permethrin spray has failed.

The tick you're concerned about are Ixodes ricinus. They live on sheep, deer, other mammals (including small rodents) and birds. You'd have your work cut out trying to remove all their hosts!

 

[Buchan]

I thought rabbit ticks are a different species of tick, and specific to rabbits and rodents. In the Americas it is Haemaphysalis leporispalustris, but not sure what it is in the UK.

There are hundreds of different species of tick, and it is the species that live on deer and people that I wish to reduce: Ixodes ricinus (sheep or deer tick). It is the deer tick that carries the bacteria that can cause Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferi and B. mayonii, as well as s.l., Anaplasma, Babesia, tick-borne encephalitis virus and louping ill virus. According to Wikipedia, they can also sensitise a person to mammalian red meat (and derived-products), known as alpha-gal allergy.

By the way, found one can get doxycycline online from UK pharmacies, as getting an appointment with my GP now has the same odds as winning a lottery ticket. If anyone needs the details, PM me, if the no-tick wash and permethrin spray has failed.

Another by the way, I met a chap the other day, who suggested Lyme disease was created artificially and escaped, just like CoVid. I had not heard that before, but the person was not a conspiracy theory type of chap, so googled "Lyme disease laboratory origin", and was dumbfounded, though genetically it has been about for millenia: Genomic insights into the ancient spread of Lyme disease across North America - Nature Ecology & Evolution.

I also came across the list of pathogens associated with each type of tick: an alarming list showing a lot more diseases carried by ticks than just Lyme disease and (overseas) encephalitis. Types of Ticks - LymeDisease.org

As VSS says. Deer are an amplification host, so they will increase numbers,
Borrelia DNA was found in Utzi - the chap from the copper age frozen into the Alps.

 

[AlexD]

As VSS says. Deer are an amplification host, so they will increase numbers,
Borrelia DNA was found in Utzi - the chap from the copper age frozen into the Alps.

The farm in question is a recent permission, and has ten times the deer density of other farms where I manage deer. I believe it is these numbers that are behind the absurd level of tick infestation there.
If I understand you correctly, deer are the host in the second year, and amplify the tick numbers by providing more feeding opportunities.

 

[Buchan]

If I understand you correctly, deer are the host in the second year, and amplify the tick numbers by providing more feeding opportunities.

Any animal can act as a host for a tick. It's typical for the larvae to use small rodents (which is where they pick up the Borrelia) as they are a bit more convenient; nymphs will also go more for the smaller ones and adults go questing for larger prey by sitting on the top of grass stalks. But all stages can bite deer, and us.

 

[Finnwolf VL63]

I have never seen a year like this one for ticks. Numbers around Edinburgh are orders of magnitudes higher than I can ever remember, and I mean that literally.
As a researcher, I have a question: much that I love seeing deer and keeping a moderate population, I am contemplating removing all the deer and foxes from one farm where tick numbers are just off the charts.
Even washing with no-tick, covering myself with Pemethrin before going out, I still come back with ticks when visiting them.
There are rabbits on that farm, and I intend reducing them to as low numbers as possible as well, though rabbits rarely seem to get ticks - there is something blotching their skins when skinning them.
I don't think there are enough birds landing in those fields to maintain a feeding cycle.
Would maintaining zero numbers of deer and fox for two years, be enough to eliminate the ticks by breaking their host feeding cycle?

Best of luck with you will need it ,Grouse Moor keepers have been doing this for decades shooting Deer Hares and Rabbits.They also uses large flocks of sheep to mopp up the ticks which are then dipped up to four times a year at tremendous cost and time. Some years they can get the tick burden down but it is a constant battle.