The move is part of the government’s plans for protecting the U.S. from the New World screwworm fly, which could devastate its beef industry and even kill household pets.
The U.S. government is preparing to breed billions of flies and dump them out of airplanes over Mexico and southern Texas to fight a flesh-eating maggot.
That sounds like the plot of a horror movie, but it is part of the government’s plans for protecting the U.S. from a bug that could devastate its beef industry, decimate wildlife and even kill household pets. This weird science has worked well before.
„It’s an exceptionally good technology“, said Edwin Burgess, an assistant professor at the University of Florida who studies parasites in animals, particularly livestock. „It’s an all-time great in terms of translating science to solve some kind of large problem.“
The targeted pest is the flesh-eating larva of the New World Screwworm fly. The U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to ramp up the breeding and distribution of adult male flies — sterilizing them with radiation before releasing them. They mate with females in the wild, and the eggs laid by the female aren’t fertilized and don’t hatch. There are fewer larvae, and over time, the fly population dies out.
It is more effective and environmentally friendly than spraying the pest into oblivion, and it is how the U.S. and other nations north of Panama eradicated the same pest decades ago. Sterile flies from a factory in Panama kept the flies contained there for years, but the pest appeared in southern Mexico late last year.
The USDA expects a new screwworm fly factory to be up and running in southern Mexico by July 2026. It plans to open a fly distribution center in southern Texas by the end of the year so that it can import and distribute flies from Panama if necessary.
The scientific name for the parasite, Cochliomyia hominivorax, is roughly translated to „man-eater“, according to the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
„When NWS fly larvae (maggots) burrow into the flesh of a living animal, they cause serious, often deadly damage to the animal“, the USDA says.
