The move comes as the New World Screwworm fly larvae continues to cause chaos as it infiltrates the US beef industry, affecting wider wildlife, pets and, in rare cases, humans.
According to scientists, the new batches of male sterilised maggots will be dumped over the South American nation and the US state of Texas in a bid to eradicate the vicious variety of flesh-eating larvae.
The US Department of Agriculture is said the male flies, which measure slightly larger than the average housefly, will be sterilised with radiation before being released.
The strategy, set out by scientists, will force the female screwworms to breed with the newly sterilised males.
The flesh-eating variety of the screwworm maggots were eradicated from the US in 1966, but the creatures appear to me making a comeback.
In a plot twist, the trump administration forgets to sterilize the flies before releasing them. And now they’ve accelerated the incursion into the US
Anyone wanna take bets on Trump cancelling the program to “save the budget”?
The article doesn’t mention why this is suddenly an issue. They used to have a narrow choke point around Panama where they did this routinely to keep these things from ever getting into the US, but that was cut as part of the “government efficiency” fiasco, so now it’s a widespread, growing, problem. Really the perfect example of why wildly cutting government spending without thought is not an ‘efficient’ approach to reducing spending.
There is also a picture of a screw-worm infected dog in the article, if you want to see what your republican sponsored future will be
It’s worth noting that the current outbreak that’s occurring north of Panama started prior to DOGE doing its bullshit. Apparently it began in 2022.
Worth noting that people still have no idea how much damage Trump and Republicans did the first go around.
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I read something different re: the cause.
It’s difficult to say how they made it past the Darien Gap, but there are several possibilities, Earl said. Monitoring and surveillance for screwworm was relaxed due to the COVID-19 pandemic several years ago, and an increase in illegal cattle trafficking in the region might also be helping to spread animals infected with maggots. The increase in human migration northward may also be playing a role, Earl said.
“MAGAts for maggots”
Don’t look up screw worms.
I’m surprised they’re still doing it. I would have assumed the administration threw a fit about having Mexico pay for it instead.
Get rid of the MAGAts in America first.
Well if we don’t deal with screw worms… they’ll deal with us lol
I was gonna share that here if no one haven’t
Screwworms are currently in negotiations with the Trump administration.
“Everyone’s saying screw worms are bad — WRONG! Screw worms are actually amazing for controlling pests. They SAVE livestock, save money, and keep our food supply strong. We should THANK screw worms, not attack them. Sad how people don’t know the facts! #ScrewwormSuccess #MAGA”
Life, uh, finds a way.
