Florida Researchers Develop “Tick Licker” To Help Fight Disease

July 22, 1996

GAINESVILLE— University of Florida scientists have designed a device destined to tick off a pest that has long menaced man and deer alike.

Their mutual foe is that blood-sucking parasite, the tick. In fact, more than 11,000 people are diagnosed annually with a tick-borne disease. And the deer tick population — transmitter of an increasing array of human maladies, including Lyme disease — is expected to grow this year.

But the tick’s destructive days could be numbered.

UF veterinary researchers have invented the “Tick Licker,” a device that destroys the blood-sucking creatures while deer munch on lunch.

It works like this: Deer gather to eat from a large circular food bucket and brush against a column in the center of the bucket that’s filled with pesticide.

Parts of the deer that have the greatest contact with the column are the ears, head, nose and neck — preferred attachment sites for many ticks.

Michael Burridge and Sandra Allan of UF’s College of Veterinary Medicine, in collaboration with Daniel Sonenshine of Old Dominion University, have been working on the device since 1991 and are confident it works.

They cite its advantages: the device is lightweight, inexpensive, durable and requires little maintenance. Most importantly, they say, it’s environmentally sound, designed to prevent any environmental contamination with pesticide.

“In effect, the animal passively treats itself with pesticide when using the applicator as a food source,” said Burridge, a professor of pathobiology. “You can just put it out in a field and forget about it.”

Allan, an assistant scientist and entomologist, presented the group’s findings in mid-June at the 7th International Conference on Lyme Borreliosis in San Francisco. The UF team also published an article with Sonenshine in the April issue of the British journal Medical and Veterinary Entomology.

One species of tick that feeds on deer, Ixodes scapularis, is a known transmitter of the bacteria that causes Lyme disease in humans. Another species, commonly called the Lone Star tick, is known to transmit bacteria that causes a similar disease, ehrlichiosis, which was not in humans until the early 1990s.

While neither disease is prevalent in the South, there have been a small number of cases of Lyme disease in Florida. Just last month, the first fatal cases of human ehrlichiosis were reported from Northeast Florida.

These illnesses are transmitted to humans through tick bites and cause a variety of problems, ranging from flu-like symptoms to joint inflammation. When diagnosed early, they are easily treated with antibiotics.

UF received a U.S. patent for the device in 1994 and licensed marketing rights to a Virginia company, ACM International, LLC.

“ACM presently is investigating the potential for the device’s use in the domestic marketplace,” said Wayne Moran, the company’s director of regulatory affairs.

Meanwhile, UF has received inquiries from overseas ranches and wildlife parks about the possibility of using the device. Preliminary trials conducted with goats and wild deer indicate that animals readily use applicators and that applicators deliver sufficient pesticide to the animals to control ticks, Allan said.

“In field trials, white-tailed deer from areas with applicators had significantly fewer ticks than those in areas without applicators,” she said. “Pesticide analysis of hair samples from these deer confirmed the deer’s use of the applicators.”

“Conceptually the idea is there,” said Kirby Stafford, an entomologist with the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven, Conn. Stafford co-monitored a breakout session during the June conference on the role of tick control in limiting the spread of Lyme disease.

“The majority of female deer ticks feed on white-tail deer,” Stafford said. “It seems clear that if you can control those ticks and other feeding ticks, you can control the spread of disease. But as with all research, it’s the implementation of the idea that has to be fine-tuned.”

Primary markets for the device in the United States could include communities in which Lyme disease is known to be prevalent, national parks and private game parks. However, questions of practicality still need to be addressed — such as what type of pesticide is safest to use, given that deer can be a source of food for humans, Burridge said.

“More field data are still needed to further establish the device’s effectiveness,” he said, adding that previous attempts to amass such data through access to military installations and national parks have been unsuccessful.

However, the UF team is enthusiastic about the field trials they hope to plan in the near future.

“We’re looking into testing the Tick Licker on private deer ranches,” Allan said. “That should provide the database we need to take the next step toward confirming its usefulness.”