San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Ranchers are sick of fever ticks
Pest eradicated in ’40s has returned with a vengeance
SAN YGNACIO — When a neighbor’s bull jumped the fence this spring to make new friends on the Santa Maria Ranch, he apparently brought more than amorous ambitions.
A month later, during a routine inspection by the Texas Animal Health Commission, dreaded fever ticks were found in the Santa Maria herd, triggering a grueling nine-month eradication process.
“The chips fell. They had come out many times before without finding ticks. Now we have to be in quarantine,” said Maria Eugenia Guerra, 71, whose family has owned the small Zapata County ranch since the early 1800s.
Since the tick treatments began in June, the Santa Maria herd has been rounded up and dipped three times. Last week, a TAHC team came to administer Dectomax, an anti-parasite medication.
All told, about 10 visits will be required.
With dust in the air and dry mesquite beans crunching underfoot, the bawling cattle were penned and then run through a metal chute.
Each received an injection in the neck, as well as a quick hand scratch for ticks. This time around, none was found.
Zapata County, which borders Mexico about 200 miles southwest of San Antonio, is best known for Falcon Lake, a mecca for bass fisherman.
With 67 infested ranches, the county also is one of the hot spots in the biggest fever tick infestation to hit Texas in decades.
“It’s widespread and long-term. We’ve been dealing with it here for at least 10 to 15 years,” said Zapata County Judge Joe Rathmell, 58, whose cattle are regularly treated for ticks.
“It has certainly put a hurt on ranchers as to whether they want to stay in the business. It’s a lot of work, and it’s expensive,” he said.
The ticks, which come from Mexico, carry an organism that causes a blood disease. It often is fatal to cattle that have no acquired immunity. There is no vaccination or approved treatment for infected cattle.
According to the TAHC, the current outbreak in South Texas began in 2014.
As of May 31, the agency reported, there were 171 infested and quarantined locations spread among Cameron, Hidalgo, Maverick, Webb, Willacy, Starr, Jim Hogg and Zapata counties. Additional acreage was quarantined in Kinney County.
Together, the affected areas cover almost 1 million acres, including nearly 200,000 acres in Zapata County.
Occasionally, fever ticks show up farther north, spooking cattle raisers. One was found recently in Jim Wells County, more than 100 miles from the border.
In late 2016, ticks were found even farther afield on a bull in Live Oak County. More were subsequently identified on seven neighboring properties, prompting quarantines. They were lifted this spring.
Callie Ward, a TAHC spokeswoman, acknowledged that five years into the agency’s all-out battle against the tick, eradication remains elusive.
“It’s different this time. We’re facing new obstacles, new hurdles. We need research on other methods to fight the ticks,” she said. “We’re fighting the good fight. We’re holding it constant, but we want to get it back down.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which has 21 tick fighters in Zapata County alone, noted another troubling development.
“Fever ticks from Mexico are increasingly becoming resistant to products approved for use in the United States,” spokeswoman Joelle Hayden said.
For Guerra and other Zapata County ranchers, the eradication program, while necessary to curb the spread of the deadly disease, is costly, inconvenient and stressful for cattle.
The pesticide treatments also interfere with the rancher’s ability to sell cattle, and, some believe, depress prices.
“First of all, I don’t like using chemicals at all on the ranch, and it’s pretty strong stuff they are injecting,” Guerra said.
“Second, it’s having to pay for the labor and feed when I keep the cattle penned up. Sometimes they all come in early, sometimes they don’t,” she said.
During the inspection, a renegade group of nine Santa Maria cattle stayed hidden in the thorny brush. It took riders on horseback to round them up to be treated.
Longhorns shot on sight
When it first appeared more than a century ago, the mysterious and deadly disease was called Texas Cattle Fever, and with reason, as it accompanied the cattle drives to markets in Northern states.
According to the Texas Handbook, an English veterinary journal reported in 1868 that a “very subtle and terribly fatal disease” had broken out among cattle in Illinois.
Northern cattlemen watched their herds swiftly succumb to the curse — which didn’t affect the Longhorns that carried it. The Northerners’ reaction was swift and harsh.
In 1885, Kansas outlawed the passage of Texas cattle across its borders, and cattlemen were prepared to enforce it.
Some referred to the measure as the “Winchester Quarantine,” which meant Longhorns were shot on sight.
Not until 1893 did scientists identify the micro-organism that causes the blood disease. They soon discovered that the parasite was spread by two species of ticks.
By the early 20th century, the disease had spread to 14 Southern states, wrecking havoc on the region’s cattle industry.
In 1906, a concerted state and federal campaign began to eliminate the disease by dipping cattle.
By 1940, tick fever had been pushed back to Mexico.
Since then, the USDA has maintained a permanent buffer zone along stretches of Texas’ border with Mexico.
Government tick riders regularly patrol the river to intercept stray or smuggled cattle from Mexico. The animals are sprayed with a pesticide and quarantined.
In Texas, state officials have been battling the ticks for even longer.
“We have been fighting the fever tick since 1893. Sometimes we can push them back to the Mexico border, and sometimes we see them inland,” said Ward of the TAHC.
For decades, the fever ticks were largely held in check at the border. But changes in land use and wildlife populations apparently have undermined traditional treatments.
Dr. Sonja Swiger, an entomologist with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, said the current outbreak is likely “the largest since before they got rid of it in the 1940s.”
Because it has been decades since ticks were a real menace, she said, they are an unfamiliar adversary for a lot of Texas ranchers.
“A lot of them can tell you about going out with their grandparents for the screw worms, but not fever ticks. That shows us that there was a long time when they didn’t have to know about it,” she said.
Fidencio Mendoza, 70, of Zapata, spent more than 30 years looking for fever ticks. He first worked as a tick rider, and later as a federal tick inspector at auction barns. Now retired, he reflexively examines cattle he encounters.
“When I feed my cows, I’m always looking for ticks,” he said.
Decades ago, when he was riding the river by horseback in Zapata County and patrolling Falcon Lake, they were uncommon.
“On the lake, it was pretty rare to see ticks. Now everything is different. Something went wrong,” he said.
Mendoza has no ready theory to explain the current infestation, but he thinks some of the old ways may have worked better.
“We used to ride a lot on horseback, and check cattle in the pastures, check fences and report fence damage,” he said.
“Now they have new guys working who … don’t even scratch the cattle.”
More deer, more fever ticks
With new outbreaks in Zapata, some ranchers are growing pessimistic.
“This time it’s the worst. We have never been quarantined before,” said Jose Dodier, 71, whose family runs about 500 “mama” cows on 11,500 acres.
“The program is 114 years old, with only minor changes, and I think it is safe to say, it doesn’t work.”
He said when cattle from an infested ranch are sent to market, even if they are tick-free, they carry a stigma.
“When you ship them, they’ve got these ear tags from the quarantine zone, and the buyers at the auction barn start saying, ‘Ticky, ticky.’ It’s an excuse for them to pay less,” he said.
Dodier, who serves on the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board, believes a concerted research effort should be launched.
“We need the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Texas Animal Health Commission to fund a permanent solution. We need a research center, and it should be here,” he said.
Javier Zapata, 60, who owns the feed store in Zapata and has cattle along the river, also is pessimistic.
“I have cattle in Zapata Viejo and I have been fighting the ticks there for 12 years. I’m still trying to clean up my land, get all the ticks off of it,” he said.
He believes that ongoing landuse changes, particularly along the river, leaving more acreage in brush, are aggravating the problem.
“A lot of people are getting out of the cattle business. They are renting the land to hunters, and white-tailed deer are also a carrier,” he said.
“From Zapata north to San Ygnacio, along the river, there are now about five ranches. Before, there were 15 to 20. And from Zapata south to Chihuahua, there are only about 15 ranches, when years ago there were 30 to 40,” he added.
Rathmell, the county judge, who also ranches along the river, said the outbreak is unprecedented.
“Growing up, helping my father, I remember we’d have infestations but it would be every 10 years. Now, for the last 20 years we can’t get rid of them,” he said.
He also thinks long-term environmental changes are undermining the eradication effort.
“Back then, there was more rain, and Falcon Lake was full most of the time, so there wasn’t as much cover for deer,” he said. “But beginning in the ’80s, the water level dropped, allowing a lot of cover to grow and there are many more deer around the lake.”
Thus far, no effective methods to treat ticks on deer have been found. Until that is dealt with, he said, things won’t get better.
“Once we started getting more deer, the tick outbreak got worse, and it hasn’t improved since.”
Government tick riders regularly patrol the river to intercept stray or smuggled cattle from Mexico. The animals are sprayed with a pesticide and quarantined.