Latest / CattleUSA Daily / 89: What Every Cattle Producer Needs to Know About the Asian Longhorn Tick Threat

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89: What Every Cattle Producer Needs to Know About the Asian Longhorn Tick Threat · CattleUSA Daily

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Welcome to another episode of the Cattle USA Daily podcast.
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Today we are welcoming Jonathan Quebec on with Oklahoma Research
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and Extension to talk about the Asian Longhorn tick and what
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that means for us as producers. This tick is semi new.
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It has been here for about 15 years in the United States and
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has continuously moved West and moved South and we are
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continuing to monitor it and a lot of research has started to
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come out with it. So Jonathan is here today to
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talk all about the how, what, when we are or why that we need
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to be doing as producers to continue to fight this tick and
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it just be an informed producer population.
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So without further ado, let's go ahead and hop into this episode
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with Jonathan. Welcome to the Cattle USA Daily
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podcast, your go to source for the latest livestock markets,
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industry insights and the updates shaping agriculture
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today. I'm your host Lauren Moylan, a
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passionate advocate for agriculture, here to keep you
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informed and connected. Now let's dive into today's
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episode. Jonathan, welcome to the
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podcast. We are so excited to welcome you
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on today and to chat a little bit more about Asian Longhorn
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ticks and what that means for the cattle industry, producers
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and everything. I would love if you could take
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it away, Share a little bit about what you do, your role,
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your position and what you do within research.
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Yeah, thanks for the the the introduction in the invite,
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Lauren. So I am an assistant professor
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and state extension specialist for livestock entomology and
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parasitology at Oklahoma State University.
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So basically, you know, that's a lot of words to kind of describe
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that, you know, if if we're talking about some sort of
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external pest or parasite, whether that's a family or a
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tick of any sort of livestock animal, chicken, pig, goat, cow,
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horse, we know whatever that might be.
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I've got kind of statewide responsibility in dealing with
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those pest issues. Now the pest that we're going to
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talk about today is the Asian Longhorn tick.
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And the last summer, Oklahoma became the 21st state in the
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country to have confirmed populations of this.
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And we'll call it a new pest, but it's been present in the
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United States for, you know, we, we think about 15 years or so at
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this point. Awesome, awesome.
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Can you share a little bit more about what the tick is, why it's
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kind of even an issue in the 1st place, and just a little bit
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more about it just for background context for everyone
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as well? Sure.
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So it's a non-native or invasive species.
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It was first found kind of in the the northeastern part of the
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United States around 2010. But we had some initial reports
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that were a few years later than that.
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But as researchers went back through samples of ticks that
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they had collected, you know, in previous years, they found, hey,
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you know, we actually had this species present in other States
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and in earlier times than what we initially thought.
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So we know we think that sometime around 2010 is when
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they were first introduced to the northeastern part of the
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country. And since that time they've been
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spreading West and South. They're they're problematic for
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a number of reasons. The first of which they're
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ticks, right? Nobody likes them.
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The hit they blood feed, we don't feel it right.
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It's not like a mosquito bite or something that you, you notice
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immediately. Usually when you get blood fed
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on by a ticket, something that you you know, you notice later,
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right? You see the tick or you know,
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you, you feel it like if you you touch it and then afterwards we
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might have some sort of dermatitis, he knows, or, or
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some sort of, you know, allergic or or itching response, you
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know, to that bite. But it's something completely
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different than what we typically, you know, experience
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with some of these other other biting pests.
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Now, for livestock and other animals, they're probably
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because they're blood feeding on them as well, and they can feed
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in extremely high numbers. Usually when we think about
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ticks on animals, there's not a whole lot of, you know,
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typically of ticks on an animal, right?
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You know, if we're thinking about something like Lone Star
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ticks on a cow, we might have 10, you know, 50 or something
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feeding on that animal, which is going to have some sort of an
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economic impact on that cow because of the, you know, the
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irritation that they're experiencing.
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But with Asian Longhorn ticks, we're in a completely different
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situation. Usually when we think about tick
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biology, we think about the the different host animals that they
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feed on while they're growing. So something like a, a Lone Star
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tick, which is a, a common tick across a lot of kind of the, the
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country, or even an Asian Longhorn tick, we would classify
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those as three host ticks. So over the course of their
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lifespan, they're going to feed on three different host animals.
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And usually those host animals are going to get a little bit
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bigger with each successive blood feeding.
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So a larval ticks going to feed on something small, maybe a
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rodent can take that blood meal, drop off, digest that in the
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environment. Few months later when it's ready
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for its next blood meal, it's going to go out, you know, host
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seeking. It might get on a raccoon or a
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rabbit or a dog or something as a nymph and take that blood
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meal, drop off, digest it, and then the adults are going to get
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on something larger, deer, cow person, you know, take their
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blood meal. Now with Asian Longhorn ticks,
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what we can see is even though they're classified as three host
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ticks, we can often see all three live stages, larvae,
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nymphs in adults on the same host animal, like individual and
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also species. So we could have a very high
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number of these ticks feeding on something like a cow, which, you
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know, is a very large host. But there are cases where the
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numbers of these ticks have been so high on individual animals
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that the animal can actually succumb to those ticks from kind
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of that blood loss because of that huge amount of of ticks.
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Now that's extremely rare and you know, we'd have probably
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thousands of ticks on that animal and numbers can get that
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high because in comparison to some of our other ticks, adult
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Asian Longhorn ticks are extremely small.
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They're about half the size of Lone Star ticks or black legged
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ticks or, you know, some of the other tick species that that we
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might be commonly encountering. So they could go unnoticed
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because we're just not going to see them.
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So in addition to being small, one of the biggest challenges
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with them is the females reproduce through a process
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known as parthenogenesis. So that's asexual reproduction.
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So they don't have that added challenge of locating a male
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tick in the environment to be able to reproduce.
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And to date, most popular of Asian Longhorn ticks in the
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United States are, we'll say 100% female.
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But we, we've had some isolated reports of maybe 1 male
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collected out of hundreds of, of females and in that same, you
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know, collection period. So I'm, those females are able
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to lay a very large number of eggs, you know, over the course
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of their lifespan, about 2500 eggs.
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So we can have populations of them increasing, you know,
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exponentially because they can take that blood meal as an adult
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and then, you know, just immediately go into egg
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production, you know, and those eggs are going to hatch and then
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we're going to have more larvae present to to feed on animals.
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Can you share a little bit more about the migration pattern that
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we have seen with these ticks over the past 10-15 years?
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You said it started in the Northeast, Now we're obviously
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seeing issues with them in the Midwest and further W as they
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go. Can you just share a little bit
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more about that? Sure.
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Luckily one of the the good things about it is this is a
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species that's kind of tropical and subtropical in origin.
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So it's very sensitive to humidity.
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So unfortunately for a lot of the the eastern, southeastern
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and kind of the upper Midwest of the the country, it's kind of
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well within the humidity range of the tick based on the
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environmental models that have been published so far.
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And we can, what we can see so far based on some of these
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environmental models is that at least for Oklahoma, central
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Oklahoma is going to be about the the western edge of kind of
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it's predicted range because anywhere basically West of I-35,
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it's going to be a little too dry.
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And we can kind of follow that same line up into Kansas.
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So about the eastern third of Kansas is going to be the area
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that would be most likely to be able to support Asian Longhorn
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ticks. Now, as of April and May of
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2025, there aren't any confirmed cases within Kansas, but there
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are certainly counties within Missouri and Arkansas and
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northeastern Oklahoma that have documented populations of Asian
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Longhorn ticks. Absolutely.
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So what what's the precaution that we need to be taking with
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these ticks? Obviously, you've shared a
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little bit about the impact that these ticks are having on the
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economy, the environment, how truly bad they are.
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But can you share a little bit more about what are we doing
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from a research standpoint, but then also what do we need to be
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doing to be proactive as producers against these ticks?
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Yeah. So I think the the good news is
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we've we know we've got 15 years worth of experience with this
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tick and you know the kind of northeastern part of the of the
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United States and there are a number of researchers that are
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livestock entomologists. I'm like myself kind of across
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that I'm kind of gradient of the country that have been working
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on this as it has moved into their state.
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So we have a lot of information on it.
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Some of the best things that this research that's been
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conducted has has found is that really to kind of help prevent
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the spread of Asian Longhorn Texas, to limit the movement of
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animals as much as possible. I'm So one thing that I didn't
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mention earlier is so far Asian Longhorn ticks have been
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collected from about 150 species of animals in the environment.
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So that's everything from pets to wildlife to livestock to
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people. I'm so there are a lot of
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animals in the environment that are contributing to the movement
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and the spread of Asian Longhorn ticks across the country.
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You know, those ticks and wildlife, they don't care about
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county lines or state borders or anything like that.
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So they're just, they're moving and contributing to that spread.
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But if we think about what we can do with our, our livestock,
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we can control where they go. And so we want to be vigilant
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about that. If, you know, moving animals
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from an area that is positive for Asian Longhorn ticks, we
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don't want to inspect them, you know, to make sure that there,
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there aren't any on there. And we would want to be really
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careful about moving those animals from an area that's, you
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know, known to have Asian Longhorn ticks to an area that
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that doesn't. So limiting movement of animals
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is one of the best things that producers can do.
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Another thing is, is what we would call cultural control in
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within integrated pest management.
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And that's things that we could do to modify the environment to
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make it uninhabitable for the ticks.
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So a good example that people can relate to would be thinking
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about mosquitoes. Mosquitoes need standing water
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to be able to reproduce in. If you've got old tires laying
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around or a birdbath that's not running or a 5 gallon bucket
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that's full of water, you can kick that over and spill that
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water out. And it makes that environment
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less inhabitable by mosquitoes. So we can do the same thing for
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ticks. Ticks are spending 9095% of
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their lifetime off of the host animal.
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So they're in the environment digesting that blood meal that
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they took, molting, hanging out waiting for their next meal.
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With this particular species, they need that high humidity
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environment. So, you know, we can think about
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they're going to be kind of in the leaf litter or down in kind
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of that thatch layer within grass, you know, where the
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humidity is going to be a lot higher.
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We're not going to expect to see them out in the middle of a, you
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know, a pasture where there's not a tree inside.
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It's going to be too dry and probably too hot for them to be
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able to survive within that situation.
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So if we can either keep animals out of heavily wooded areas or
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you're right, we want to make sure that we're providing shade
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or something for a cattle. But if we are make sure that the
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kind of that underbrush area around those trees is cleared
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out. So something as simple as even
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going through with a brush hog and a on a tractor kind of cut
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that material down, disrupts that environment enough and it
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makes it to where the the ticks can't survive.
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So same thing with tall grass, right?
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We want our animals to be able to have access to grass to eat.
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But if we've got areas where there's a lot of overgrowth that
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the animals aren't in, we can mow that down and it'll help
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kind of disrupt that habitat for the ticks.
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Absolutely. From an animal health
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standpoint, Porons, any advice there as far as like animal
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health and products that people could be using?
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Yeah. So to this point, everything
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that has been tested, there's kind of a couple of studies that
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have been done by some colleagues at other
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universities, some testing sprays and poron akaricides.
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And what they found are products that are labeled for use against
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ticks in general are effective against Asian Longhorn ticks.
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So if you've got a product that you're already using that you
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like, you know, that's doing a good job for other tick species,
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keep using it. And if you use that in
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conjunction with that environmental modification that
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we just talked about and also limiting the movement of animals
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and what research is shown out of Tennessee is that can have a
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huge impact on Asian Longhorn tick populations.
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Perfect. As we go out into the future,
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the next few years and keep battling this tick and the
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infestation of them and everything like that that we are
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seeing here in the United States, what's the future of
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this looking like? Are we continuing to see more
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research dedicated to this? And what does it look like for
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producers? We've obviously talked about
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being proactive as producers themselves, but the concern of
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it is obviously there and what do we need to be doing there?
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Yeah, I, I think I'm one of the best things that, you know,
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pieces of advice that I could give producers was to, you know,
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be vigilant about being in tune with the, the health of your
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animals. Check on them regularly, you
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know, and, and if you're running them through a shoot to tag them
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or to treat them for something, you know, just give them a good
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look over, you know, kind of all over their body to see if there
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are any ticks on them and if there are any ticks that you're
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not used to seeing. Unfortunately, I think Asian
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Longhorn ticks are probably here to stay.
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We've only had them for about 15 years.
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Other areas of the the world have had them for for 100 plus
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years. You know, they've been moved
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around by a human mediated transport and trade and things
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like that. Given that the fact that they're
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able to reproduce at such a high rate is sexually their
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population numbers can be extremely high.
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So that's going to be basically the hurdle that we're going to
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have to figure out how to overcome.
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So I think that, you know, now we probably just have another
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tick that we're going to have to be be dealing with.
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Absolutely. Well, Jonathan, thank you so
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much for your time today and for coming on to share more about
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this and specifically sharing it from the producer standpoint
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about what what they can be doing to stay vigilant and be
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proactive for their herd populations, not only from an
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economic impact, but from an animal welfare impact.
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I know I spent some time last week in the Branson area and I
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got so many ticks on me, it wasn't even funny and I was not
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having fun. So I will stick to my Central
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Kansas area and hopefully the techs stay far away from me and
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absolutely. So just seriously thank you for
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your time today, Jonathan. We really appreciate it here at
14:41
the team. And as always to all of our
14:43
listeners out there, we will have any of Jonathan's links
14:46
link down below if you guys would like to see more on Asian
14:48
Longhorn ticks and just learn more about that, be a more
14:52
proactive and educated producer population that we talk about on
14:56
here a lot. And as always, like subscribe.
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Great review and we'll see you all tomorrow on another episode.
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Have a good one y'all.