3 rd International Symposium on Hunting, » Мodern aspects of sustainable management of game populations« Zemun - Belgrade, Serbia, 26 – 28. September, 2014. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ Original scientific paper UDC: 595.42 FINDINGS OF TICKS IN SOME SPECIES OF WILD CARNIVORES Stojanov I. 1 , Pušić I. 1 , Pavlović I. 2 , Prodanov Radulović J. 1 , Kapetanov M. 1 , Ratajac R. 1 Summary: In the natural habitat of Vojvodina, there are different species of carnivores. The most common species inhabiting our hunting grounds include foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and jackal (Canis aureus). They are well adapted to living in diverse habitats and can have both useful and harmful influence on the nature. One of their negative impacts is reflected in the possibility to carry or transfer, via the vector, a range of contagious diseases, which can be dangerous for wild and domestic animals as well as for humans. Among the hematophagous parasites that endanger the population of wild animals, ticks play a particular role because of their impact on the health either directly by causing parasitic infection or as vectors of diverse infectious diseases. Monitoring of presence of these ectoparasites enables assessment of prevalence of ticks and collection of data on possible infectious diseases. In that respect, the objective of our study was collecting ticks in foxes and jackals with an aim of determining the hunting grounds that are inhabited by carries of these parasites and identifying tick species that are most prevalent in the investigated wildlife population. The ticks were collected from hunted animals that were submitted to the laboratory for examination. The examined population encompassed 23 hunted foxes and 20 jackals. The animals originated from two hunting grounds from Srem and one from Bačka. The presence of 4 species of ticks was confirmed: Dermacentor marginatus, Haemaphisalis punctata, Ixodes ricinus and Rhipicephalus sanguineus. Keywords: foxes, jackal, ticks, health Introduction Natural and hunting grounds in the territory of Vojvodina (Srem and Fruska Gora) are inhabited by two most common types of carnivores belonging to the Canidae family - foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and golden jackal (Canis aureus) (Ristić, 2008). Foxes are widespread in Europe, Asia and North America. This animal inhabits wooded areas and feeds with different small rodents. Jackal is very close relative of dogs and inhabits the wooded and grassy landscapes (Ristić, 2008). Both animal species are present in the territory of Vojvodina, which is part of a specific lowland ecosystem. As carnivorous predators, their role is important in terms of control of the presence of small rodents, which causes damage to agricultural crops (mouse, rat, hamster). On the other hand, they can be fed with dead or hunted animals, and thus play a role in the "cleaning", i.e. removal of animal remaining from the nature. At the present time, because of the reduction of natural habitats (Bradley and Altizer, 2007), i.e. the disappearance of boundaries between the settlements and the nature, the animals are increasingly coming into direct contact with the man. Foxes and jackals, more than previously, can come to the municipal solid waste landfills or even to a place for disposal of garbage on the outskirts of settlements (villages and towns). This type of contact can favour the transfer of the diseases between different animal species such as foxes and jackals, as well as between domestic carnivorous animals. This may lead to the spread of infectious and parasitic diseases as well as to creation of the reservoirs of disease, which will continuously disseminate the infectious agents in the nature as well as among animal population in urban areas. Parasitic diseases that can be transmitted from wild to domestic animals include tick-born ectoparasitoses (which may result in the presence of tick-transmitted diseases) that pose particular threat 1 Stojanov Igor., PhD, senior research associate, Scientific Veterinary Institute Novi Sad, Rumenačkiput 20, Novi Sad, Pušić Ivan, Ms, senior specialist advisor, Prodanov Radulović, Jasna, PhD, research assistant, Kapetanov Miloš, Phd, senior research associate, Ratajac Radomir, PhD, senior specialist advisor 2 Pavlović Ivan, PhD, principla research fellow, Scientific Veterinary Institute of Serbia, Belgrade Corresponding author: Igor Stojanov, igor@niv.ns.ac.rs 154