Tick Surveillance
The Warren County Mosquito Control Commission is currently conducting tick surveillance with funds provided by the Center for Disease Control in partnership with the New Jersey Department of Health. The program started in the fall of 2021 with three routine surveillance sites and has expanded to include over 25 surveillance locations throughout the county!
The goals of our surveillance program are:
- Identify the different types of ticks residents may encounter
- Determine when and where ticks are most active within our county
- Gather disease data about our local tick populations
Using a standardized tick collection approach allows us to compare our results between different sites within the county. Our surveillance method involves dragging a white sheet (called a drag) through tick habitat, like trail edges, leaf litter, and tall grasses. Ticks attach to the drag as it moves across the ground because it imitates animals that can provide the tick with a blood meal. The drag is turned over and inspected at regular intervals; any ticks found on the drag are collected with tweezers and immediately placed in ethyl alcohol to preserve them. These ticks are brought back to our office in Oxford, NJ where they are identified to species and then submitted to the NJ Public Health and Environmental Lab for disease testing.
The commission will continue to expand our tick surveillance program as funding allows.
