Elk offered corn feed to help eradicate ticks

Wildlife officials are in the field testing the appetite of elk for corn feed they plan to lace with medicine to kill off winter ticks in the next couple of months.

Wildlife officials are in the field testing the appetite of elk for corn feed they plan to lace with medicine to kill off winter ticks in the next couple of months.
The effort is part of the initial step to counter the Yukon’s infestation of winter ticks among the elk population, and reduce the risk of the tick spreading from elk to moose, deer and caribou.
Biologist Rick Ward of the Department of Environment said Tuesday staff have been in the field for about four days spreading corn feed to see how well the elk warm up to the new taste.
This winter’s focus will be to herd as many of the 150 Takhini Valley elk as possible into wilderness pens and keep them there over a prolonged period while providing them with the medicated feed, Ward said.
He said the same feed will be given to 100 or so elk making up the Braeburn herd, though there’ll be no attempt this year to capture that segment of the population.
Ward and company held a briefing at the end of Tuesday’s day-long workshop to gather input from a cross-section of Yukoners on how best to handle the infestation, the seriousness of which was first documented last March.
Some 40 representatives from first nations, government departments, the agricultural industry and so on attended Tuesday’s meeting. They have agreed to meet again in May to discuss the success of this winter’s first cut at the problem.
When wildlife management staff collared an additional 18 elk last March 12 Takhini Valley elk and six Braeburn elk every animal was carrying the tick.
The notion of simply shooting all the elk which are not natural to the Yukon but arrived here through transplant efforts dating back to the 1950s and running into the early 1990s was mentioned briefly, but that’s it, Ward said.
An elk cull is not off the table altogether, and will be on the agenda again for May, he added, though for now, the focus is on medicating the elk to reduce the infestation and the risk of spread.
Ward said this winter’s effort to capture and medicate the elk could hit $100,000.
Ward and others explained the goal will be to capture and pen as many of the Takhini Valley elk as possible, beginning as soon as is feasible.
The medicated feed, however, won’t be provided until early March, once the ticks begin their regular feeding cycle as they prepare to beef up and drop off the animal later in the spring to lay their eggs.
Feed will be provided to the Braeburn elk by staff working feed stations in the area. Staff will remain at the Braeburn stations whenever they’re open, to ensure moose, deer or caribou are discouraged from indulging, to prevent the introduction of the medicine into animals that may be harvested.
Michelle Oakley is a veterinarian and Environment’s regional biologist stationed in Haines Junction. She suggested that even if a moose did get some of the feed, and was subsequently harvested, the consumer would have to eat an unrealistic amount of meat to be affected.
Oakley said keeping the Takhini elk inside the pen until they drop the ticks will ensure the pests are confined to one area, which can be burned off later in the spring or even next fall.
Waiting until the fall to burn the area, she explained, would allow for research into the development of the winter tick through the late spring and summer months.
The ground cover in the pen area will be burned in either case, to kill off the new crop of ticks, Oakley said.
Winter ticks drop off in the spring and attach themselves to grasses and brush. As the elk, or other members of the deer family, walk by, the tick latches on.
While the tick is generally not fatal for elk, research in Alberta, for instance, shows it can be deadly for moose and deer.
Itchiness caused by the bloodsucking bugs drives the animals nuts, resulting in disrupted eating patterns and less ability to stay warm, while the animal loses more body heat because of greater hair loss caused by the tick.
Grant Lortie, a local non-government biologist familiar with the devastation the winter tick can cause, said an outright cull of the two herds may be the most distasteful approach. But it’s likely the quickest, least expensive means of protecting the territory’s natural populations, he said.
Craig Stephen, a veterinarian and research scientist working on disease surveillance in the animal world, was in Whitehorse to participate in Tuesday’s workshop.
With very little history of the winter tick in the Yukon, it’s difficult to assess the potential threat to the moose, caribou and deer, he said.
Stephen said most of the research is based on conditions in the south.
He did say, however, that he suspects there will be some winter ticks found on animals other than elk because people are now actively looking for them.
But if there was a major problem with the moose population right now, it’s likely somebody would have seen something, he said.
Stephen said there is no hard and fast rule to eradicate the winter tick in the Yukon. The eradication of any bug anywhere is very difficult, he said.
It’s one thing to knock the infestation down by 50 per cent, and from 50 per cent to 25 per cent, he said, adding it’s entirely more difficult to get rid of the last 10 per cent with any certainty.
The approach being taken, Stephen suggested, is a good first goal to try to contain the tick and reduce the potential for spread to indigenous populations.
He explained after the initial effort is done this winter and spring, an evaluation can be provided at the May workshop to assess the next step.
It was clear to Stephen from the participants at Tuesday’s workshop that there is very little tolerance for the winter tick infestation, and that everybody wanted the counter-attack against the infestation to begin immediately.