Border ranchers are seeking ‘surge' on fever tick front Texas border ranchers said Thursday they are ready to head to Washington to bring attention to their losing struggle against the cattle fever tick. The tick once decimated the American cattle industry. It now has spread to an area three times the zone where for decades it had been contained. “We are involved in three wars — the war on terror, the war on drugs and the war on ticks,” Zapata County rancher Humberto Vela told colleagues, animal health officials and others gathered here. “We have made some progress, but the ticks have made more progress.” Vela called for a “surge” in manpower and resources to keep the tick from infecting cattle in interior counties. The ticks are considered eradicated in the United States, save for a narrow zone along the Mexican border, where they cross the Rio Grande on the backs of wayward Mexican livestock....