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Prevalence of Winter Ticks (Dermacentor albipictus) in Hunter-Harvested Wild Elk (Cervus canadensis) from Pennsylvania, USA (2017–2018)

Winter ticks (Dermacentor albipictus) 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 (Alces alces) populations in the northeast United St...

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Autores principales: Calvente, Elizabeth, Pelletier, Samantha, Banfield, Jeremiah, Brown, Justin, Chinnici, Nicole
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7712540/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33198183
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vetsci7040177
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author Calvente, Elizabeth
Pelletier, Samantha
Banfield, Jeremiah
Brown, Justin
Chinnici, Nicole
author_facet Calvente, Elizabeth
Pelletier, Samantha
Banfield, Jeremiah
Brown, Justin
Chinnici, Nicole
author_sort Calvente, Elizabeth
collection PubMed
description Winter ticks (Dermacentor albipictus) 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 (Alces alces) populations in the northeast United States and Canada. Winter ticks have been identified on other cervid species, including deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and elk (Cervus canadensis), 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.
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spelling pubmed-77125402020-12-04 Prevalence of Winter Ticks (Dermacentor albipictus) in Hunter-Harvested Wild Elk (Cervus canadensis) from Pennsylvania, USA (2017–2018) Calvente, Elizabeth Pelletier, Samantha Banfield, Jeremiah Brown, Justin Chinnici, Nicole Vet Sci Article Winter ticks (Dermacentor albipictus) 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 (Alces alces) populations in the northeast United States and Canada. Winter ticks have been identified on other cervid species, including deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and elk (Cervus canadensis), 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. MDPI 2020-11-12 /pmc/articles/PMC7712540/ /pubmed/33198183 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vetsci7040177 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Calvente, Elizabeth
Pelletier, Samantha
Banfield, Jeremiah
Brown, Justin
Chinnici, Nicole
Prevalence of Winter Ticks (Dermacentor albipictus) in Hunter-Harvested Wild Elk (Cervus canadensis) from Pennsylvania, USA (2017–2018)
title Prevalence of Winter Ticks (Dermacentor albipictus) in Hunter-Harvested Wild Elk (Cervus canadensis) from Pennsylvania, USA (2017–2018)
title_full Prevalence of Winter Ticks (Dermacentor albipictus) in Hunter-Harvested Wild Elk (Cervus canadensis) from Pennsylvania, USA (2017–2018)
title_fullStr Prevalence of Winter Ticks (Dermacentor albipictus) in Hunter-Harvested Wild Elk (Cervus canadensis) from Pennsylvania, USA (2017–2018)
title_full_unstemmed Prevalence of Winter Ticks (Dermacentor albipictus) in Hunter-Harvested Wild Elk (Cervus canadensis) from Pennsylvania, USA (2017–2018)
title_short Prevalence of Winter Ticks (Dermacentor albipictus) in Hunter-Harvested Wild Elk (Cervus canadensis) from Pennsylvania, USA (2017–2018)
title_sort prevalence of winter ticks (dermacentor albipictus) in hunter-harvested wild elk (cervus canadensis) from pennsylvania, usa (2017–2018)
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7712540/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33198183
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vetsci7040177
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