TICKS IN NORTH AUCKLAND

Otago Witness, Issue 3334, 6 February 1918, Page 12

TICKS IN NORTH AUCKLAND

VARIOUS ANIMALS AFFECTED. NO OCCASION FOR CONCERN. (Fhom Our Own Correspondent.) AUCKLAND, January 29. Some concern has been felt lately by North Auckland farmers at the presence among cattle, horses, dogs, and occasionally sheep, o,f a species of tick which is associated with a serious cattle disease in Queensland, the United States, and South Africa. Questioned on the subject to-day, Dr C. J. Reakes .(director of the Live Stock Dayision of the Department of Agriculture) said that this disease, -which was known in Queensland as "tick fever," and in .other countries by local names, was caused by the presence of minute parasitic bodies in

tho blood of affected animais in countries where it prevailed. The ticks, being bloodsucking parasites, were 6imply carriers of infection from animal to animal in the same way that the mosquito was a carrier of malarial fever from man to man. " This disease," said Dr Reakcs. "does not exist and has never been known to exist in New Zealand, and though a number of cattle, together with other classes of stock, in the north of tho Auckland district have been found to bo harbouring ticks, close observation and careful investigation have failed to detect in theso cattle any trace of tick fever or any form of sickness resembling it. Ticks have been found in this part of New Zealand for some years past, but during the late spring they_ were unusually ♦numerous, this being considered to be due to the considerable duration of wet weather experienced being_ favourable to their dissemination. These ticks are of a different variety from those responsible for carrying disease in Queensland and America, though they are of an allied species and can only be differentiated by close examination. They are quite common parasites in most countries. While there is nothing to fear from them in connection with contagious, disease so long as we can prevent its introduction into_ New Zealand, they may be mischievous in the direction of reducing the value of hides if present on individual animals in sufficient numbers. Their blood-sucking habit will reduce the condition of an animal harbouring large numbers of them. Their appearance is seasonal. They first appear in early spring and disappear about the end of January."