Passive Animal Surveillance to Identify Ticks in Wisconsin, 2011-2017

• Published in: Insects (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2019-09, Vol.10 (9), p.289
• Main Authors: Lee, Xia, Murphy, Darby S, Hoang Johnson, Diep, Paskewitz, Susan M
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adults; Amblyomma americanum; Animal behavior; animal care; Animal health; animal rescue shelters; Animal shelters; Animals; Arachnids; Birds; cats; Collections; county record; Dermacentor albipictus; Dermacentor variabilis; Disease; dogs; Domestic animals; Geographical distribution; Haemaphysalis leporispalustris; hard ticks; Health services; host record; Introduced species; Ixodes cookei; Ixodes dentatus; Ixodes scapularis; Ixodidae; medical facilities; monitoring; New records; Pathogens; Procyon lotor; Public health; Rabbits; Rehabilitation; Rhipicephalus sanguineus; risk; Surveillance; Sylvilagus; Ticks; Wildlife; wildlife rehabilitation; Wisconsin
• ISSN: 2075-4450; 2075-4450
• DOI: 10.3390/insects10090289

The introduction of new tick species poses a risk to human and animal health. Systematic active surveillance programs are expensive and uncommon. We evaluated a passive animal surveillance program as a monitoring tool to document the geographic distribution and host associations of ticks in Wisconsin. Passive surveillance partners included veterinary medical clinics, domestic animal shelters, and wildlife rehabilitation centers from 35 of the 72 Wisconsin counties. A total of 10,136 tick specimens were collected from 2325 animals from July 2011 to November 2017 and included Say (29.7% of all ticks), Banks (25.5%), Say (19.5%), Packard (13.8%), Packard (4.4%), and Packard (1.7%). Less common species (