Bobby Rowe uses chemical applications and grazing management strategies to reduce tick numbers.A pesticide and a vaccine are being developed to protect livestock from cattle ticks, which are becoming resistant to chemical treatments.The vaccine and pesticide look promising but are still years away from being commercially available. Share article On a cattle property in central Queensland, Bobby Rowe is fighting an old enemy — one he fears may soon outsmart the tactics he deploys against it.
At Weir Park near Gogango, 65km south-west of Rockhampton, an outbreak of cattle ticks threatens his herd. 'You'll lose production if you don't do anything.' For six years it looked like he was winning the battle, but in October he noticed an increase in the pea-sized blood-sucking insects on his cattle's back legs and the loose skin on their neck. For decades, the main line of defence has been pesticide treatments such as sprays, plunge dips, and injections. But on another property he manages, Mr Rowe saw worrying signs the pest was growing resistant to chemical treatments. 'There are some steers there that we treated and 14 days later you wouldn't think they'd been treated,' he said.) Introduced in 1872 after 12 head of infested Brahman cattle from Indonesia escaped their yards in Darwin, cattle ticks thrived in the pastures of northern Australia. 'Where it's hotter and wetter it's a bit easier for the tick to survive,' the president of peak farming lobby group AgForce, Shane McCarthy, said. 'The tick has a bacteria in it that affects the bloodstream… makes them sick and kills them,' Mr McCarthy said. He likened it to a David and Goliath battle but instead of a man defeating a giant, an insect the size of a thumbnail could take down an entire herd. Graziers behind the tick line check for increased numbers of ticks on an animal's back legs and neck. According to the University of Queensland, cattle ticks cost Australia's beef industry more than $128 million a yea