An Alberta researcher wants to know if any ticks have hitched a ride into the province.
Alberta has always had its share of ticks: wood ticks lurking in the grass waiting for unsuspecting dogs, and moose ticks waiting to catch a ride on a long-legged moose. However, Daniel Fitzgerald, a University of Alberta grad student and lab technologist with the provincial government, wants to know what other ticks are out there.
Fitzgerald is tracking the tick population for his masters’ thesis.
He was motivated to pursue the topic after a number of unusual ticks were found in the province in recent years, including at least two ticks found last summer carrying the pathogen for Lyme disease.
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“Perhaps we didn’t quite have a handle on what the tick population was within the province,” he said.
During his research, Fitzgerald will watch for the Ixodes scapularis, also known as the black-legged or deer tick, which is known to carry the pathogen for Lyme disease, a threat to humans and animals.
It’s not clear why there has been an increase in new tick sightings. One theory is the ticks hitched a ride to Alberta on migrating birds. The other possibility is that they’ve always been in the province, but nobody noticed them before.
“We want to get out there and find out exactly where the ticks are.”
Fitzgerald will use two approaches: dragging a square of flannel on the grass and inspecting it for ticks and leaving a flannel square on the ground and coming back to examine what’s attached.
In the fall, Fitzgerald will travel across Alberta picking ticks and taking blood samples from cattle when they leave the pasture.
He will also collect temperature, precipitation and vegetation information in areas where ticks are found to build a computer-generated model of the conditions ticks prefer.
He said an influx of ticks carrying the pathogen for Lyme disease isn’t necessarily cause for concern, but added it’s a good idea to keep aware of the situation.
“If there is a reorganization of their distribution, that’s the important part here.”
Scott Hartney of Saskatchewan Agriculture said ticks are a pest, but the department isn’t increasing the search for the eight-legged creatures.
“There’s lots of them. They certainly are a pest on pets.”
He said over the past decade the department has noticed a slight migration of ticks from their normal home in southern Saskatchewan to as far north as Saskatoon and Yorkton.
Hartney doesn’t know if changes in tick location are climate related or normal but only now being noticed. No ticks associated with Lyme disease have been discovered in the province.
Tim Lysyk, a research scientist with Agriculture Canada’s medical veterinary entomology section, said two kinds of ticks concern cattle in Alberta: the Rocky Mountain wood tick and the winter tick, which is most commonly seen on moose.
The Rocky Mountain wood tick is most prevalent in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains as far north as Jasper. On the prairie it can also be found in the Hanna area.
“It’s relatively common,” Lysyk said.
The major concern about ticks is their potential to spread cattle disease.
“It’s more of a what-if scenario.”
Lysyk said ticks have been extensively studied in British Columbia, and Agriculture Canada used to have a tick lab in Kamloops.
During the 1940s, an Alberta government tick survey group travelled the province searching for the insects.
