Two more cases of the New World screwworm have been confirmed, including one outside the main cluster in Texas, demonstrating the difficulty of stopping a pest that could potentially devastate the nation’s cattle industry, the US Department of Agriculture announced.<\/p>\n
The screwworm is actually a fly larva that eats living flesh instead of dead material. Females lay their eggs in open wounds of warm-blooded animals like cattle, but wildlife, pets and occasionally even humans can be infested. A government program to breed sterile male flies and drop swarms of them from planes to mate with wild females had kept screwworm contained at the southern end of Panama for decades.<\/p>\n
So far, there are four confirmed cases: three calves in Texas and a dog from neighboring Lea County, New Mexico. The dog, which the USDA initially reported as a Texas case, lives in New Mexico and was reclassified as the first in that state. The animal’s travel history is being investigated.<\/p>\n
The first two screwworm cases were discovered last week in calves a few miles apart in south Texas. The third was announced in La Salle County, southwest of San Antonio.<\/p>\n
Scientists expect a handful of new cases could pop up in the coming days and weeks, but it doesn’t mean screwworm is spreading rapidly, said Edward Burgess, a University of Florida entomologist who studies the fly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen that first case is seen, everyone is being vigilant and their eyes are on it more intensely,\u201d Burgess said. \u201cAnd when you are looking for something, you are more likely to see it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The USDA and the US cattle industry have been racing to prevent an infestation since screwworm was detected in Mexico late in 2024. The annual warm-weather scourge of cattle ranchers had been eliminated in the US in the 1960s.<\/p>\n
So far, its reappearance hasn\u2019t greatly affected beef prices, which are already near record levels because there are fewer cows in the US. Although the parasite attacks live cattle, it does not infest meat or fruit. There are also a dozen government-approved medications to treat livestock.<\/p>\n
Canada temporarily stopped importing cattle, horses or other livestock from Texas. The parasites prefer humid areas where temperatures are at least 25C, making them more of a summer problem up north.<\/p>\n
USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins will hold a news conference about the infestation following a briefing at the US Livestock Insects Research Laboratory in Kerrville, Texas.<\/p>\n
Burgess said the long-term solution \u2014 breeding sterile male flies \u2014 is months away. Since wild female flies mate just once, if that encounter is with a sterile male, outbreaks can eventually be halted as the flies die out.<\/p>\n
The USDA is working to both increase sterile fly production in plants outside the US and build a massive fly factory in Texas.<\/p>\n
However, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said the federal response will take too long and risks crippling the cattle industry. Instead, he says a poison bait could eliminate the screwworm problem in a few months, even if USDA and other experts say the bait hasn\u2019t been proven to work and could poison other flies, animals and even humans.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the hell is a good fly?\u201d Miller said in an interview.<\/p>\n
The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including warnings about powerful waves, and a former Warrior comes out. (Source: Breakfast)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two more cases of the New World screwworm have been confirmed, including one outside the main cluster in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[273,14934,42,43,64,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-467827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-environment","tag-farming","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-north-america","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}