With deer season under way, federal and state animal health officials are asking hunters to look over the animals they take for signs of New World screwworm, a flesh-eating fly larva whose detections in Texas have risen this fall.
Federal figures show 22 detections in Texas from Nov. 1 through Nov. 11, after 15 in all of October and three in September, NBC 5 reported, citing data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Over the course of the outbreak, the Texas Animal Health Commission has confirmed the parasite on 72 properties spread across 24 counties, the station reported.
The commission's current movement restrictions cover parts of 31 counties, stretching from El Paso and the Big Bend across the Hill Country to the Rio Grande Valley and the Abilene area. Grayson County and its neighbors are not on that list. Warm-blooded animals inside the restricted zone cannot be moved out without the commission's approval and an inspection.
Wildlife cases
Most of the attention has gone to cattle and other livestock, but the parasite can infest any warm-blooded animal.
In October, a sample from a female elk taken by a hunter on a Pecos County game ranch produced the first confirmed screwworm case in U.S. wildlife in the current outbreak, and on Nov. 4 Texas Parks and Wildlife confirmed another elk case, this one in Jeff Davis County.
"We really need people to be our eyes that are out there," Rear Adm. Michael Schmoyer, an associate administrator at the USDA's animal and plant inspection agency, APHIS, told NBC 5, calling hunters a "force multiplier" in finding infestations in places where wildlife is rarely seen up close. The USDA has posted a resource page aimed at hunters and others who spend time outdoors.
