Ag Web Farm Journal
Rhonda Brooks
February 10, 2022
What kind of pest can move into a country and sweep across a third of it in only four years? The Asian longhorned tick (ALT), for one.
A native of southeast Asia, the tick’s presence was formally recognized in the U.S. in 2017 in New Jersey. The tick was found on an imported Icelandic sheep and confirmed by the Rutgers Center for Vector Biology.
By last September, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) had confirmed the tick (Haemaphysalis longicornis) is now present in at least 17 states: Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
