Officials to drop millions of flies from airplanes to fight flesh-eating parasite: 'The female fly finds a living host'
You've heard the saying "dropping like flies," right? Well, in Texas, they are about to drop millions of flies from planes. It may sound like a bad script for a low-budget horror flick, but Texas ranchers see it as a gift from the heavens.
The New World screwworm, an invasive, flesh-eating parasitic insect, is spreading from the south to terrorize farms across the region.
Folks from Panama to Texas are on edge, as CNN reported that since 2023, these nasty buggers have infested over 90,000 animals throughout Central America after being dormant for decades.
While this kind of infestation is bad enough for cattle ranchers, the danger doesn't end there. The screwworm fly infests wounds on horses, deer, and pets and will gnaw away until the animal can't fight back.
Phillip Kaufman, head of entomology at Texas A&M, put it like this: "After mating, the female fly finds a living host, lands on its wound, and will lay up to 200 to 300 eggs." Within 24 hours, the eggs hatch, and the larvae begin digging deep into living tissue.
"It's a daily chore to provide those inspections to our livestock, just to make sure they're not infested," Stephen Diebel, a rancher and first vice president of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, told CNN. "We know the incredible economic impact an infestation would cause."
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No vaccine can stop them. No proven repellent works. So the United States Department of Agriculture wants to bring back an old fix: Fight flies with flies.
Here's how it works. Inside specialized "fly factories," crews breed screwworms. But before the screwworms mature, the crews zap the males with gamma rays. This damages their DNA, so they mate but leave wild females with unfertilized eggs. Soon enough, the population drops.
This plan saved the U.S. cattle industry billions of dollars in the 1960s and 1970s. But the stakes are just as high now. "When you offset the $300 million to the $10 billion of economic impact these flies would have, it's an easy trade-off to understand," Diebel said.
The USDA already uses a facility in Panama but needs backup. A new fly factory near the Texas–Mexico border could churn out hundreds of millions more sterile flies for air drops.
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If you're picturing a fly shower over your backyard, don't worry. Kaufman told CNN that these releases target remote areas where livestock roam, not cities.
Similar tactics are catching on elsewhere too. In California, officials cracked down on invasive fruit flies harming crops. Farmers have tried natural predators such as the samba wasp to curb spotted wing drosophila infestations. This mirrors efforts in Hawaiʻi, where teams drop lab-raised mosquitoes to protect honeycreepers from avian malaria.
One catch? Wildlife spreads screwworms too. Some ranchers rely on local action plans — more wound checks, better fencing, and quick reporting.
If ranchers don't keep it in check, this tiny bug could cost the industry billions. But with this unusual fly force, ranchers hope the screwworm stays grounded for good.
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Officials to drop millions of flies from airplanes to fight flesh-eating parasite: 'The female fly finds a living host' first appeared on The Cool Down.
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