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The effectiveness of permethrin-treated deer stations for control of the Lyme disease vector Ixodes scapularis on Cape Cod and the islands: a five year experiment
Citation:
The effectiveness of permethrin-treated deer stations for control of the Lyme disease vector Ixodes scapularis on Cape Cod and the islands: a five year experiment . Parasites & Vectors. BioMed Central Ltd, London, Uk, 7:292:1 - 8, (2014).
Impact/Purpose:
The purpose of the study was to determine the effectiveness of 4-poster permethrin-treated deer stations for control of the Lyme disease vector Ixodes scapularis on Cape Cod and the islands over five years. Relative to controls, blacklegged tick abundance at treated sites was reduced by approximately 8.4%, which is considerably less than in previous 4-poster studies.
Description:
The use of animal host-targeted pesticide application to control blacklegged ticks, which transmit the Lyme disease bacterium between wildlife hosts and humans, is receiving increased attention as an approach to Lyme disease risk management. Included among the attractive features of host-targeted approaches is the reduced need for broad-scale pesticide usage. In the eastern USA, one of the best-known of these approaches is the corn-baited “4-poster” deer feeding station, so named because of the four pesticide-treated rollers that surround the bait troughs. Wildlife visitors to these devices receive an automatic topical application of acaricide, which kills attached ticks before they can reproduce. A 5-year controlled experiment was conducted to estimate the effects of 4-poster stations on tick populations in southeastern Massachusetts, where the incidence of Lyme disease is among the highest in the USA. A total of forty-two 4-posters were deployed among seven treatment sites and sampled for nymph and adult ticks at these sites and at seven untreated control sites during each year of the study.
