By Jessica Dome
Multimedia Reporter

To protect cattle across the state and nation, the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC) is reminding hunters in the Rio Grande Valley to have any deer or exotics they harvest in a cattle fever tick quarantine area tested before leaving the zone.

There are currently cattle fever tick quarantine areas in parts of the following counties: Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr, Zapata, Webb, Maverick, Kinney, Val Verde, Willacy, Kenedy and Brooks.

“Hunters are required to present their hide for inspection and treatment,” Eli Benavidez, TAHC regional manager, said. “Before the hide can be removed from the quarantine area, either a TAHC or USDA representative will go out to the premises, inspect the hide and treat it. They will give you a movement permit.”

Once a hunter has a movement permit, they are free to take the hide from the quarantine area.

Hunters who plan to leave the hide at the site of harvest are not required to have the deer or exotic tested prior to leaving the quarantine area.

“If they’re just going to take the meat, it’s not a requirement, but we still encourage it,” Benavidez told the Texas Farm Bureau Radio Network. “The more surveillance that we get is better for our program because we want to know in what areas wildlife is a factor as far as moving fever ticks around.”

Those who do not plan to take the hide, but are willing to have it inspected, don’t have to be on-hand for the testing and treatment.

“If you leave the hide somewhere that we can get to, say you leave with your meat and you call us and say, ‘I left the hide hanging from so-and-so tree or at this gate,’ that’s perfectly fine as long as you don’t take the hide out of the premises,” Benavidez said. “We will still go out there and inspect the hide.”

It is vital that hunters in cattle fever tick quarantine areas have their hides tested before leaving the zone because it helps prevent the spread of fever ticks to naïve cattle in unaffected areas of the state and nation.

“We don’t want fever ticks leaving a quarantine area and infecting an area that’s not under a cattle fever tick quarantine,” Benavidez said. “It’s a huge burden to local producers, hunters, lessees and ranch managers. When you establish a quarantine area, the livestock producers are impacted pretty heavily. They have to gather their cattle frequently for inspection. They have to get their animals dipped or treated before they can leave their premises.”

According to TAHC, cattle fever ticks are the most dangerous cattle ectoparasites in the U.S. They’re capable of carrying and spreading parasites to cattle, causing bovine babesiosis, or cattle fever.

“Babesiosis is endemic in Mexico, but the Mexican cattle population has grown up with babesia,” Benavidez said. “The ones that survive it when they’re calves, they pretty much build up immunity to it, and it doesn’t affect them the rest of their lives. Now, our cattle population in Texas, in the United States, has not grown up with babesia. So, they are what we call naïve cattle.”

Babesiosis attacks and destroys cattle’s red blood cells, causing anemia, high fever and enlargement of the cow’s spleen and liver.

It ultimately leads to the death in up to 90% of cattle that have had no prior exposure to the parasite.

“Imagine if you had 50% death loss, how that would affect you. The price of beef would skyrocket. The price of leather goods would skyrocket. I mean everything that is made via cattle production, we would see a huge increase in price because of a shortage of cattle, and we obviously don’t want that,” Benavidez said. “We can prevent all that by following the regulations that are put in place in our quarantine areas and not running the risk of allowing fever ticks to get into our naïve populations in Texas and further into the rest of the United States.”

Hunters are required to have the hides of the following animals tested if they’re harvested in a cattle fever tick quarantine area: white-tailed deer, nilgai antelope, black buck, axis deer, red deer, gemsbok, aoudad, Texas Dall Sheep and other exotics.

“Call us early in the process. As soon as you shoot that animal, if you know you’re going to want to take the hide, give us a call. The sooner you call us, the faster we can get to you,” Benavidez said.

Contact information for cattle fever tick testing is available on the TAHC website at tahc.texas.gov.