Effectiveness of Guinea Fowl as Biological Control Method for Ticks in Protected Areas: A Case of Saanane Island National Park, Mwanza Region Tanzania

Saanane Island National Park (SINP) is the smallest Park in Tanzania and highly infested with ticks. Burning of pasture is the common method used in other PAs to control ticks but in the case of Saanane it is not feasible because of the limited areas suitable for animal pasture and dispersal area. The study focused on determining the current population of ticks and assessing effectiveness of guinea fowl as a biological control of ticks. The experimental study was carried out in eight paired plots in homogenous habitat and data were collected once per week for eight weeks between end of September to early November 2018. Ticks were collected from 16 randomly selected sites in grassland and rocky woodland vegetation by dragging, visual search and handpicking from immobilized and non immobilized animals. A total of 1,108 ticks were collected in the field and preserved in 70% ethanol for laboratory analysis. Three tick species were identified Rhipicephalus appendiculatus, Rhipicephalus evertsi and Amblyomma marmerium. Data were analyzed using Wilcoxon matched pair test where the results suggested that there is significant reduction of ticks using guinea fowl as biological control (Wilcoxon z –value =1 and p value 2). Further statistical analysis revealed no significant difference in rate of tick removal between nymph (Wilcoxon z-value =1; p value 2.365) and adult Wilcoxon z-value=1; p value = 2.306). To determine the feeding habits of guinea fowl Spearman’s Rank Correlation was used to obtain the value for rho(r) which was 0.3304 positive correlations in tick reduction. Based on this finding it is concluded that guinea fowls are effective biological control of ticks in the ecosystem