Caribou, Deer, Elk & Moose - Sounds Wild
Winter Tick

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Winter tick

On a summer day in the Yukon, a bug the size of sesame seed is crawling up a tall blade of grass. It's a larval tick, a juvenile that hatched earlier from an egg on the ground. Now this young tick is looking for a host. When a passing moose, elk or deer brushes against the grass, this tick will attach. Over the winter months it will feed in earnest. In the spring, engorged and fertile, it will drop off, lay eggs and the cycle will begin again.

For the host, those winter months can be a nightmare. This is a winter tick, a type of tick that is devasting to wildlife. Alaska has native ticks seen on squirrels and hares, and the winter tick has not reached Alaska. But it's moving west and north and its in the Yukon and British Columbia. In New Hampshire, 41 percent of annual moose mortality is due to winter ticks, and they are the leading cause of death for moose in northern Minnesota. Those moose host thousands of ticks, and their impact adds up.

A moose with a lot of ticks will scratch and rub, wearing the hair off its neck, shoulders and sides. The constant rubbing distracts it from eating and avoiding predators. Hair loss means heat loss, and those ticks consume a lot of blood. The combined stress is fatal to many animals. Wildlife managers in Alaska are monitoring ticks and working to keep winter ticks out of Alaska.