{"id":322617,"date":"2026-06-04T15:23:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T15:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/322617\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T15:23:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T15:23:09","slug":"flesh-eating-screwworm-found-in-texas-calf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/322617\/","title":{"rendered":"Flesh-eating screwworm found in Texas calf"},"content":{"rendered":"

What happened<\/p>\n

New World screwworm, a deadly flesh-eating parasite, has been confirmed in a calf in south Texas, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said late Wednesday<\/a>. It was the first case of the fly-borne parasite found in U.S. livestock since 1966.<\/p>\n

Who said what<\/p>\n

Screwworms are \u201cparasitic flies whose females lay eggs in open wounds\u201d on \u201cany warm-blooded animal,\u201d hatching hundreds of larvae that \u201cuse their sharp mouths to burrow through living flesh, eventually killing their host if left untreated,\u201d Reuters<\/a> said. Human cases are \u201crare,\u201d and the fly \u201cposes no food safety issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The U.S. has been preparing for the parasite\u2019s arrival<\/a>, sealing the U.S. southern border to livestock since screwworms were found spreading north through Mexico in 2024. If \u201cmore screwworms are found\u201d in the U.S. beyond this one case, it \u201ccould devastate the American cattle industry,\u201d The New York Times<\/a> said. The nation\u2019s cattle herd is \u201calready at its smallest since the 1950s,\u201d The Wall Street Journal<\/a> said.<\/p>\n

The Week<\/p>\n

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\nSUBSCRIBE & SAVE\n<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up for The Week’s Free Newsletters<\/p>\n

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n

Latest Videos FromWhat next? <\/p>\n

The USDA is \u201ctaking immediate action\u201d to \u201ccontain\u201d and \u201ceradicate this case,\u201d said Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, including forming a 12.4-mile \u201cinfested zone\u201d quarantine around the calf<\/a>, increasing monitoring and releasing millions of sterile New World screwworm flies to shrink the population.<\/p>\n

A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day \u2013 and the best features from TheWeek.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What happened New World screwworm, a deadly flesh-eating parasite, has been confirmed in a calf in south Texas,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-322617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}