The United States recently suspended imports of cattle, horses, and bison from Mexico in response to a growing threat: the return of a silent, flesh-eating invader called the New World Screwworm. The screwworm is more than just a bug. It’s a flesh-eating parasite that poses a severe risk to livestock and wildlife and is crawling its way north from Mexico.
If left unchecked, the screwworm could decimate American cattle, horses, and wildlife. And once it’s here, eradicating it could take decades and cost billions. The last time it happened, our livestock industry took 30 years to bounce back.
While Mexico cries foul, it’s time we stop pretending we’re dealing with a friendly, cooperative neighbor. We’re not.
Thankfully, the U.S. is not taking any chances and has responded swiftly and decisively. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins deserves enormous credit for jumping into action. The USDA quickly mobilized, ramping up strategies to stop the outbreak at its source and suspending live animal imports through ports of entry along the southern border on May 11.
The methods being used are the same ones that successfully eradicated screwworm from the U.S. in 1966: releasing massive numbers of sterile male screwworm flies. A female screwworm fly lives only 30 days, maximum. Since she gets just one chance to mate in this short window, mating with a sterile male means her line ends there. No offspring means no spread. Since each female can lay up to 3,000 flesh-eating larvae, breaking that reproductive cycle is the key to stopping the outbreak.
But for that to work, flights to disperse sterile male flies need to be constant and daily. Mexico knows this but still imposed restrictions, limiting USDA sterile fly dispersal flights and imposing customs duties on the tools needed for the job, such as plane parts, fly shipments, and dispersal equipment, delaying every aspect of the operation. Let that sink in: As a deadly parasite inches toward our border, the Mexican government is nickel-and-diming the planes and tools we’re using to stop it. That’s not cooperation. That’s sabotage.
Hellbound and Down 