Project White Tail

NEWVEC established the Cervid–Vector Ecology Research Station C–VERS) in 2024 in a partnership between the University of Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife (MassWildlife). The herd of deer is habituated to human contact as they are nurtured by researchers from a young age. The research station sits on a five-acre plot of natural forested habitat. The natural habitat is hospitable to a local population of blacklegged ticks that regularly attach to the deer.

A principal research goal of C–VERS is to reduce the abundance of ticks on these white-tailed deer in a minimally invasive and safe manner. A long-term goal is to generalize effective methods of white-tailed deer tick control across the greater endemic region.

All C–VERS investigations are performed in compliance with local, state, and federal law and with oversight from the UMass Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), MassWildlife, and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

With deer populations likely to grow, NEWVEC is focusing on white-tailed deer as researchers look for more opportunities to control ticks and tick-borne diseases. So far, such efforts have been restricted primarily to the use of acaricide treatment bait stations (e.g. 4-posters).

New interventions may include acaricidal treatment or immunization of deer to protect them from tick bites and active ingredients may be delivered in oral or topical formulations. Effective dosing must be provided while minimizing nutritional enrichment that may cause unwanted effects on deer population numbers or health. Finding this balance requires a detailed understanding of the behavior, nutrition, and immunology of wild populations of white-tailed deer. Additionally, toxicology, formulation chemistry, and discovery of molecules for these use cases need more attention.

White-tailed deer are the principal host and breeding site for several tick species (including blacklegged and lone star ticks) and associated pathogens in the northeastern United States.

The incidence of tick-borne diseases began to increase in the 1970s, which is driven in large part by changing landscapes, reduction of hunting pressure, and removal of natural predators of deer.

With more deer, there are more ticks breeding. White-tailed deer are fundamental to the proliferation of tick populations, but approaches to quell their growth are limited. Reducing deer densities to levels that would affect tick abundance requires management strategies that are either impractical or undesirable.