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Posted on 06/05/2026 10:52:04 PM PDT by OrangeHoof
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirmed a second case of a flesh-eating screwworm parasite in Texas on Friday, as it races to contain and eradicate the outbreak before it severely impacts the cattle population.
A New World screwworm was detected in a one-month-old calf in Zavala County after testing a “number of suspected cases,” according to USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). It was found less than six miles away from the ranch where the pest was reported in another young calf earlier this week.
( Snip )
The New World screwworm is a species of parasitic fly that feeds on the living tissue or flesh of warm-blooded animals, including humans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Its larvae hatch into maggots that burrow into the live tissue, causing painful, often foul-smelling wounds.
It is typically found in South America and parts of the Caribbean; however, APHIS notes that it has been steadily creeping north into Central America and Mexico since 2023.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
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What is the protocol for control and eradication?
As if beef wasn’t high priced enough already...
I remember Rush Limbaugh spending time on a “botfly” incident that happened back in the 90s.
I also remember seeing something in Popular Science, back in the early 1960s, about the Department of Agriculture using nuclear radiation to sterilize millions of screwworm flies, who were then let go into the wild, I think in Texas.
They were supposed to mate and be duds, thereby driving down the screwworm population.
I read that when I was seven or eight. My father brought me a stack of Popular Science mags that a co-worker gave him, to give to his science-crazed little boy.
Sterile screwworm flies and insecticides.
The lab which did the research, and produced the irradiated flies was in Kerrville, TX. It was not a huge facility. I guess you can raise millions of screw worms in a modest facility. They would drop boxes of the sterile male flies across Texas, successfully eradicating screw worms in Tx.
“While eradicated from the U.S. for decades, it has recently re-emerged in Texas…”
Returned to South Florida about 2021, not seen since.
They preyed on deer herds, which were being decimated by Burmese Pythons.
Build The Wall
That was about the time I was given National Geographics by my parents to read but I couldn’t get past those topless African women...
Screwworms were eradicated from the United States using the sterile insect technique, which involved releasing sterilized male flies to mate with wild females, leading to a decline in the population. This method was successfully implemented in the 1960s and has been crucial in preventing their re-establishment in the U.S.
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