Crows removing ticks (part 2 of 5)

FAQ Please read - we encourage questions and comments, but please see if your question is answered in the FAQ below before commenting. Updated 14 March 2022.

Q1. Why don't we brush the wallabies to get rid of the ticks? A: Because they are wild animals, not pets. It is illegal to interfere with native wildlife in Australia. This footage was filmed using remote trail cameras - no humans are on site, except for weekly visits to maintain the water supply.

Q2. Why don't we trap/catch the wallabies to get rid of the ticks? A: Because it would kill them - following a stressful event such as being chased and captured, wallabies can suffer from rhabdomyolysis, which is the death of muscle fibres and subsequent release of toxins into the bloodstream. This can lead to serious complications such as renal (kidney) failure within 24 hours after the incident and death will occur within 2-14 days later.

Q3: Why don't we spend thousands of dollars on tranquilliser dart guns to sedate the wallabies to remove the ticks? A: Illegal.

Q4. Why don't we put something in the water to kill ticks? A: This was the only water source for many kilometres, and all wildlife depended on it for survival - including bees, reptiles and amphibians.

Q5. What's with the wood in the water? A: To provide safe access to the water for small birds, insects, reptiles and amphibians, as well as a way to get out if they fall in.

Q6. Don't the heads of the ticks stay attached and cause infection? A: A decapitated tick is a dead tick. Infection only appears to be a problem for the wallabies when large numbers of ticks remain attached in one site, causing inflammation, circulation loss, necrosis and eventually sloughing of necrotic tissue. The older wallabies have all lost the top half of their ears to this process. Bear in mind too, that a single female tick will lay thousands of eggs, so every tick eaten = thousands of eggs not laid.

Q7. "You moron, these are crows!"/ "you idiot, these are ravens!". A: There has been terse disagreement in the comments about whether these are Australian ravens (Corvus coronoides) or Torresian crow (Corvus orru). Whatever your personal opinion in the Great Crow v's Raven Debate, please just pretend that the title supports your view and move on with your life. People get upset about the strangest things.

Q8. You terrible people! How did you let your animals get in this state?! A: These wallabies roam over an enormous range through agricultural land and state forestry, and are as much "our animals" as the wind is "our wind". This footage was filmed during an unprecedented Positive Indian Ocean Dipole event which resulted in a ferocious drought and dried up all natural water sources in the region - some for the first time in living memory. Historically, providing artificial water points has been discouraged in Australia, as macropods are meant to be nomadic and not remain in one place to strip the vegetation. The summer of 2019/2020 marked a change in this official position however, as all of eastern Australia was in severe drought and on fire; there was no where for the wildlife to go. The Department of National Parks and Wildlife even resorted to dropping feed into National Parks by helicopter in an attempt to prevent the loss of entire populations of critically endangered species. We were carting feed and water over 100km to this site, but newcomers were arriving every day, many in horrific condition.

Q9. What about Lyme disease? A: Surveillance of Australian ticks has not yet found the presence of the Borrelia bacterium (which causes Lyme disease) in Australian ticks. There are however people who have been diagnosed with Lyme disease after returning to Australia from overseas, and Australian ticks do carry diseases which can have somewhat similar symptoms, including Australian Tick Typhus or Spotted Fever and Flinders Island Spotted Fever, leading to 'Lyme-like disease'. Also of interest is a rare condition called tick-induced mammalian meat allergy, caused by an acquired allergy to the galactose-α-1,3-galactose protein which is found in mammalian meat and animal products such as cow's milk and gelatine. We take reasonable precautions to avoid tick bites, such as wearing long sleeves and insect repellent, but if we were afraid to pick up a single tick we could not continue our work on this property.

Q10. What species of tick are these? A: Kangaroo tick (Amblyomma triguttatum). They are native, but do not usually occur in such high numbers. A tick plague such as this one usually follows a longer than average summer breeding season followed by an unusually warm winter, so that so that large numbers of nymphs survive to become adults. In recent years, summers have been getting longer and hotter, and winters shorter and warmer. Land clearing and pesticide use have also decimated the population of small birds and predatory insects which eat tick larvae, so tick plagues are becoming more common.

[GubanaNatureRefuge]

FAQ Please read - we encourage questions and comments, but please see if your question is answered in the FAQ below before commenting. Updated 25 October 2020.

Q1. Why don't we brush the wallabies to get rid of the ticks? A: Because they are wild animals, not pets. They are shy and do not let us near them. It is also illegal to interfere with native wildlife in Australia

Q2. Why don't we trap/catch the wallabies to get rid of the ticks? A: Because it would kill them - following a stressful event such as being chased and captured, wallabies can suffer from rhabdomyolysis, which is the death of muscle fibres and subsequent release of toxins into the bloodstream. This can lead to serious complications such as renal (kidney) failure within 24 hours after the incident and death will occur within 2-14 days later.

Q3: Why don't we spend thousands of dollars on tranquilliser dart guns to sedate the wallabies to remove the ticks? A: Maybe if we won lotto, but it would still be illegal.

Q4. Why don't we put something in the water to kill ticks? A: At the time this footage was filmed, this was the only water source for many kilometres, and all wildlife depended on it for survival - including bees, reptiles and amphibians. Adding insecticide to the water would result in a catastrophic by-kill of unintended victims.

Q5. What's with the wood in the water? A: To provide safe access to the water for small birds, insects, reptiles and amphibians, as well as a way to get out if they fall in.

Q6. Don't the heads of the ticks stay attached and cause infection? Aren't they best left to drop off naturally? A: No, the ticks are removed whole - we often find dropped ones in the water, still complete and very much alive. We also get covered in ticks during summer, and pull them off ourselves with little care and without problems - we have never had mouthparts left behind in our skin. Infection only appears to be a problem for the wallabies when large numbers of ticks remain attached in one site, causing inflammation, circulation loss, necrosis and eventually sloughing of necrotic tissue. The older wallabies have all lost the top half of their ears to this process. Bear in mind too, that a single female tick will lay thousands of eggs, so every tick eaten = thousands of eggs not laid.

Q7. "You moron, these are crows!"/ "you idiot, these are ravens!". A: There has been terse disagreement in the comments about whether these are Australian ravens (Corvus coronoides) or Torresian crow (Corvus orru). The main difference between the two is in the throat hackles. Whatever your personal opinion in the Great Crow v's Raven Debate, please just pretend that the title supports your view and move on with your life. I'm at the stage of just removing these pointlessly acrimonious comments - people get upset about the strangest things.

Q8. You terrible people! How did you let your animals get in this state?! A: These wallabies roam over an enormous range through agricultural land and state forestry, and are as much "our animals" as the wind is "our wind". This footage was filmed during an unprecedented Positive Indian Ocean Dipole event which resulted in a ferocious drought and dried up all natural water sources in the region - some for the first time in living memory. Historically, providing artificial water points has been discouraged in Australia, as macropods are meant to be nomadic and not remain in one place to strip the vegetation. The summer of 2019/2020 marked a change in this official position however, as all of eastern Australia was in severe drought and on fire; there was no where for the wildlife to go. The Department of National Parks and Wildlife even resorted to dropping feed into National Parks by helicopter in an attempt to prevent the loss of entire populations of critically endangered species. We were carting feed and water over 100km to this site, but newcomers were arriving every day, many in horrific condition.

Q9. What about Lyme disease? A: Surveillance of Australian ticks has not yet found the presence of the Borrelia bacterium (which causes Lyme disease) in Australian ticks. There are however people who have been diagnosed with Lyme disease after returning to Australia from overseas, and Australian ticks do carry diseases which can have somewhat similar symptoms, including Australian Tick Typhus or Spotted Fever and Flinders Island Spotted Fever, leading to 'Lyme-like disease'. Also of interest is a rare condition called tick-induced mammalian meat allergy, caused by an acquired allergy to the galactose-α-1, 3-galactose protein which is found in mammalian meat and animal products such as cow's milk and gelatine. Happily for us, the vast majority of tick-borne illness in Australia arises from Ixodes species, especially Ixodes holocyclus, not the kangaroo tick, Amblyomma triguttatum. Ixodes species are most common in moist, humid coastal areas, which as you can see from the footage, does not in any way describe our property. We take reasonable precautions to avoid tick bites, such as wearing long sleeves and insect repellent, but if we were afraid to pick up a single tick we could not continue our work on this property.

[Profile__]

I always love when birds tilt their faces to look closer with one eye.

[butter]

On my way to work back about 10 years there was this road where I would always see black walnuts in a line across the road. One day I realized why they were there. The crows would line the walnuts across the road and wait for cars to drive over them and crack them open. They are one of the most intelligent bird species on the planet.

[excalibur]

I'm sitting here literally begging the wallaby to stand still and let the crows pick off all those ticks because those things are disgusting.

[gulfcoastgardener]

When we lived in the Midwest, somebody dumped two kittens near our house. They were scrawny and covered with ticks. Spent an hour getting them cleaned up and they were the two most loyal cats in history. Both lived long, happy lives in the country. One of them followed me around our little farm like a dog. Wherever I was, she was.

[NewgirlNola]

People: “awwww the birds are helping him get the ticks off! How kind.”

Crows: *h o n g r y*

[lexsea]

symbiotic relationships are the coolest thing to me . something about wild animals being tolerant of each other for the benefit of one another is just amazing

[erickruckenberg]

Love how the crows look at each other like they've struck gold.

[joestratton]

The harshness of nature is sometimes hard to watch, but the crows are doing wallabies a huge favor. It's so cool to watch nature taking care of nature.

[hubriswonk]

A long time ago I worked in a steel yard and there were many cats running around. One female cat came up to me while I was eating lunch and she was covered with ticks and fleas and she was miserable. I bought a break-away flea collar for her and 2 days later she was waiting for me where I normally ate my lunch looking so healthy. This went on for a few days and I took her home. She lived 12 years and was an amazing kitty!

[elowishusmirkatroid]

Love the way the Raven's beady eye assesses the situation and the precision of his beak action.

[jav]

Such intelligent and beautiful birds. I wish there wasn’t such a negative stigma about them

[JoseGonzalez-jdsp]

I love when a bird interacts with you, it's such a great feeling. Watching this brings a smile to my face

[GankMamaElite]

I can tell getting them removed hurts like hell. But the relief afterwards must be amazing.

[HazySkies]

It's always makes me happy seeing animals helping other animals, even if it's only for mutual benefit. Those crows may have gotten only a meal each, but that poor Wallaby is probably feeling 100 times better without all those nasty oversized blood-sucking ticks on them.

[Glub]

What’s cool about this symbiotic relationship is that the wallaby must understand the benefits despite it clearly having to hurt, you can see blood after they’re ripped out. It’s like intuition at its best

[maryrose]

Those ticks are giants. The crows are like picking huge grapes. Lol.

[harukaimai]

Whoever’s running this channel seems incredibly tired of everyone’s shit lmao. hope y’all are doing alright, thanks for the video

[DanielBowens]

Had to drop a deer on my property COVERED in ticks a couple years ago. Had ticks In her ears and eyes and nose and everywhere else. I think she had gone blind from the ticks in her eyes because she never tried to run away or anything. She would stand up and stumble around, walk into a tree and lay back down. Gave her 48 hours to recover, she never did, couldn’t watch her suffer anymore. Freakin hate ticks man. In NC I swear our state mascot should be a tick

[coolbeans]

i never knew ticks could grow so large, it looks so painful