After a first year with over 22,000 images submitted to Report Fästing, reports have come in to SVA even during the winter months. New for this year is an extra investment in monitoring the taiga ticks.
“The purpose of Report Ticks is to detect unusual ticks and to obtain information about our domestic tick population. Although ticks are dormant at freezing temperatures, the Norwegian Veterinary Institute, SVA, received 146 reports with pictures during December, January and February,” says SVA in a press release.
– We are so grateful that so many people show interest and want to help report their tick finds. We expected reporting to stop completely during the winter. The reports show that there is no doubt that our common tick can be active even in winter. We don’t yet know why, but one hypothesis is that the ticks can be found near the sleeping places of wild animals. The heat from the animals can wake up the ticks and when, for example, a dog walks through the litter, the tick can get stuck in the dog’s fur, says Anna Omazic, researcher at SVA.
The tool has been refined and images have been replaced to make it easier for the user. Several changes have also been made to speed up the assessor’s work. There is now also a page with questions and answers with the most common questions from the rapporteurs. New for this year is also that in cases where SVA wishes to bring in the tick for analysis of tick-borne infectious agents, SVA will cover the postage.
– A big thank you to everyone who finds a tick and uses Report Tick! If you see a tick on yourself, on an animal or in nature, report it! We are still particularly interested in unusual or exotic ticks. Then we can identify new species early and create a basis for future monitoring of new tick-borne diseases. We look forward to also bringing in a lot of ticks from northern Sweden this year in order to gain new knowledge about the taiga tick’s distribution in the country, says Anna Omazic.
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