Late last year, Hoosier Ag Today told you that cattle imports from Mexico were suspended because of a very dangerous pest called the New World Screwworm. However, progress to further prevent it’s spread may soon allow feeder cattle from Mexico to be imported back into the U.S.
“We have worked with Mexico to come up with a new protocol to allow us to begin importation of cattle out of Mexico,” according to Dr. Burke Healey with USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. He says the situation involving the New World Screwworm is improving.
“While Mexico’s situation with the screwworm is contained into the Yucatan region of southern Mexico. This policy will allow us to continue to have cattle trade, even if that fly should move farther north, so we’re happy about that. We’ve done some inspections and expect that we’ll be able to start moving cattle in the next few weeks,” says Healey.
The New World screwworm (NWS) is a fly that has a gory way of harming cattle. The female flies lay their eggs in open wounds or body orifices and when the larvae hatch, they burrow deep into the skin like a screw driving into wood. These NWS maggots feed on cattle’s tissue, causing much larger wounds as they go.
He says USDA is taking steps to battle the screwworm across Mexico and Central America.
“We are looking at trying to increase our fly production capacity. Our main technique to control the screwworm is through a sterile fly technique where we sterilize male flies and release them so that when they mate with a female who only mates once in her life, she will lay sterile eggs. We are at production capacity in the existing facility in Panama that USDA collaborates with, so we’re bringing those flies out of Panama into Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and trying to maintain a barrier, but we are going to need more fly production if this continues and to really get an eradication program. We’re working with Mexico and Nicaragua to increase that production,” he says.
Officials with USDA say that same sterilization program was used to eradicate screwworms in the U.S. back in 1966.
In November, screwworms were discovered a cow in the southern Mexico state of Chiapas, at an inspection checkpoint close to the border with Guatemala. It was that discovery which led to the decision by U.S. officials to suspend the imports of feeder cattle and bison from Mexico.
In December, USDA announced they were providing $165 million in emergency Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) funding to protect U.S. livestock from New World screwworm.
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