Calvente Elizabeth, Pelletier Samantha, Banfield Jeremiah, Brown Justin, Chinnici Nicole
Dr. Jane Huffman Wildlife Genetic Institute, University of Pennsylvania, East Stroudsburg, PA 18301, USA.
Pennsylvania Game Commission, 2001 Elmerton Avenue, Harrisburg, PA 17001, USA.
Vet Sci. 2020 Nov 12;7(4):177. doi: 10.3390/vetsci7040177.
Winter ticks () are an aggressive one-host tick that infest a wide-diversity of ungulates. Infestations can result in anemia, alopecia, emaciation, and death. Most notably, the winter tick has caused negative impacts to moose () populations in the northeast United States and Canada. Winter ticks have been identified on other cervid species, including deer () and elk (), which generally results in low tick burdens and mild or no disease. Recently, however, a wild yearling bull elk in Pennsylvania was found dead as a result of severe winter tick infestation. To obtain baseline data on winter ticks in wild elk in Pennsylvania, we collected 1453 ticks from 190 hunter-harvested wild elk between 2017-2018. Of the 204 harvested elk, 94.3% (190/204) had ticks collected for this study and none of the sampled elk had evidence of winter-tick associated disease. The average tick burden was 7.7 ticks/elk and average winter tick load on all elk was 0.5. Results of this study indicate that winter ticks do infest wild elk in Pennsylvania. However, during the fall months, the tick burden is low and rarely associated with lesions. These data herein serve as a baseline to monitor winter tick populations over time.
冬季蜱虫（）是一种攻击性很强的单宿主蜱虫，寄生于多种有蹄类动物。感染可导致贫血、脱毛、消瘦和死亡。最值得注意的是，冬季蜱虫对美国东北部和加拿大的驼鹿（）种群造成了负面影响。在包括鹿（）和麋鹿（）在内的其他鹿科动物身上也发现了冬季蜱虫，这些动物通常蜱虫寄生负担较低，疾病症状轻微或没有症状。然而，最近在宾夕法尼亚州发现一头野生一岁雄性麋鹿因严重感染冬季蜱虫而死亡。为了获取宾夕法尼亚州野生麋鹿身上冬季蜱虫的基线数据，我们在2017年至2018年期间从190头猎人捕获的野生麋鹿身上收集了1453只蜱虫。在204头被捕获的麋鹿中，94.3%（190/204）的麋鹿身上的蜱虫被用于本研究，且所有采样的麋鹿均无冬季蜱虫相关疾病的迹象。平均蜱虫寄生负担为7.7只/头麋鹿，所有麋鹿身上冬季蜱虫的平均负载量为0.5。本研究结果表明，宾夕法尼亚州的野生麋鹿确实受到冬季蜱虫的侵扰。然而，在秋季，蜱虫寄生负担较低，很少与病变相关。本文中的这些数据可作为长期监测冬季蜱虫种群的基线。
