At the Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Winter Policy Meeting, Farm Director KC Sheperd got the chance to talk with Dr. Burke Healey, USDA’s APHIS Executive Director for VS’ Strategy and Policy division, about the screwworm situation in Southern Mexico. Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays is featuring comments from their conversation in today’s BeefBuzz.
Dr. Healey said that the situation is actually in pretty good shape. “We have worked with Mexico to come up with a new protocol to allow us to begin importation of cattle out of Mexico while Mexico’s situation with the screwworm is contained in the Yucatán region of Southern Mexico. This policy will allow us to have cattle trade with Mexico even if that fly should move further North.”
Expectations are that cattle will be able to be moved North into the U.S. in the next few weeks once inspections and corresponding paperwork is completed on the new quarantine facilities in Sonora and Chihuahua. Dr. Healey added that the ports in South Texas will remain closed for the time being.
The most effective way to control screwworms is by sterilizing male flies. The females only mate once in their lifecycle, so when they mate with a sterile male, she will lay sterile eggs.
“We are looking at trying to increase our fly production capacity,” he said. “We are at production capacity at the existing facility in Panama that the USDA collaborates with. So, we are bringing those flies out of Panama and into Mexico, Guatemala, and Nicaragua to try to maintain a barrier; however, we are going to need more fly production if this continues and to really get an eradication program.”
The facility in Panama was only designed to maintain a small barrier at the Darién Gap, but is now attempting to supply flies throughout Central America into Mexico. APHIS is also looking for potential locations in the U.S., Nicaragua, and Mexico, where new fly production sites can be built.
Dr. Healey provided some things for producers to be aware of. He said, “Screwworm has the potential to show back up in the U.S., but we haven’t had any significant cases since the eighties so very few of our producers are familiar with the screwworm and what it looks like and how to manage it.”
He advised producers to let a vet examine any wounds with maggots in them so they can make sure that the maggots are from a normal blowfly and not a screwworm. He noted that any mammal is a potential screwworm victim, and the larvae are not only found in wounds.
“The last case that we were made aware of was a man in the Dominican Republic who got screwworm in his sinuses,” Dr. Healey revealed. “It just went through an orifice and laid eggs so it doesn’t have to be in an open wound, but certainly open wounds on our animals is where we often see them.”
While screwworms do give off a distinctive odor, most people aren’t familiar with it anymore, so Dr. Healey’s best advice is to notify a local vet, county extension officer, or state vet. “There is always an ideal way that we can put state or federal personnel down there so it doesn’t cost you anything, and we can investigate that and get those detected,” he advised.
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR at the top of the story for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
