Climate Change Unleashes Killer Ticks in Vermont; 90,000 Found on a Single Moose
JULIEN BESSET/AFP via Getty Images
The growing threat of climate change has unleashed a scourge out of a horror movie: hordes of enormous ticks that are literally sucking the life out of the Vermont moose population.
The Vermont Fish & Wildlife Facebook page recently posted this counter-intuitive announcement: “Moose Hunt Proposed To Improve Moose Health In Northeast Corner Of VT.”
The agency explained that the ticks have been killing a generation of moose calves, and that a hunt would reduce the number of hosts for the ticks:
The high number of moose in the northeastern corner of Vermont has stimulated a dramatic increase in winter ticks, causing moose health to severely decline. As many as 90,000 winter ticks have been found on one moose. More than half of moose calves have died in recent winters due to blood loss caused by the winter ticks.
Reducing the number of hosts (moose) will reduce the number of parasitic ticks and improve moose health which is why a hunt limited to taking about 33 moose in Vermont’s Wildlife Management Unit (WMU) E is proposed in order to reduce the impact of winter ticks on the moose population.
That’s one way to do it, especially in the apparent absence of Moose Frontline.
According to The Kansas City Star, the main culprit is climate change:
Climate change is among the chief causes, according to a 2018 report from the University of New Hampshire.
“The iconic moose is rapidly becoming the new poster child for climate change in parts of the Northeast,” wildlife ecologist Pete Pekins said in a university press release in 2018. “The changing environmental conditions associated with climate change are increasing and are favorable for winter ticks.”
Winter ticks are partial to feeding on moose and deer, and the species “differs from other ticks in terms of its impressive size” — just over half an inch, according to Quebec.ca.
Climate change has become a top global concern, but of all the phenomenon’s devastating effects, this one might just be the suckiest.
