Yukon wildlife officials have discovered an outbreak of winter tick among the elk herds. Winter tick, also known as moose or elk tick, can put moose at a serious risk but officials say it is somewhat harmless for elk…….hmmmm.
“The winter tick does not pose any risk to human health. It doesn’t carry Lyme disease. It’s not something that we’re worried about for people, but this tick is associated with die-offs in moose in other jurisdictions in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba …,”
Wildlife officials found this female (left) and male winter tick on an elk while collaring herds in March.
(Kyle Russell/Yukon Environment Department)
On the Maine Hunting Forums earlier this month, member Albert Ladd of Maine posted some photos of a tick-infested moose and provided a real close-up look at some of these ticks. These ticks ended up killing the moose.
This is what Albert had to say about his findings.
last weekend we came onto this calf. In the trail there were several beds covered with blood from the ticks filling up at her expense. You can see the ticks clustered around her back side. Doubt this one will make it much longer. The ticks sucking her blood along with winter stress Is probably more than she can handle.
When I was hunting moose horns real hard I saw this quite often. A few so weak they couldn’t get up. You’d see where they shook and blood was scattered everywhere.
I mentioned once about finding moose dead, full of ticks and coyotes all around, but the moose not touched. A warden Paul Farrington mentioned that coyotes wouldn’t even touch them because of all the ticks.
A calf was found near my house several yerars ago. June, all dehydrated and not eaten. Loaded with ticks, been dead for a month no doubt.
Albert said he found this dead moose several years ago that had been dead perhaps a month from tick infestation. He said the only thing not affected by the ticks was the very tip of the horns.
How do these ticks affect a moose?
Moose infected with many winter ticks can lose hair and blood and end up spending too much energy scratching tick bites and less time feeding. As a result, they can die from emaciation and exposure due to hair loss.
In this case in the Yukon, officials say the odds of these ticks infecting moose are lessened because generally speaking elk and moose don’t co-mingle.
Tom Remington
