OKLAHOMA CITY- (KOKH) — U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins spoke in Yukon about how the government is trying to tackle the New World Screwworm.
“When New World Screwworm burrow into the flesh of living animals, they cause serious damage that can be deadly if left untreated. They infest live stock, pets, wildlife, and as we saw recently in very rare cases, humans,” she said.
Those are parasitic flies that were eradicated from the us in the 1960s. Now, they’re starting to make a comeback, threatening agriculture.
Oklahoma Congressman and farmer Frank Lucas shared how serious the threat was taken when he was growing up.
“I’ve listened to my late father and grandfathers talk about going out every day all summer long with a bottle of stuff to paint newborns navels and to treat every wound on an animal,” he said.
“In February, USDA and Mexico implemented a comprehensive pre-clearance inspection and treatment protocol to ensure safe movement of our livestock across the southern border,” Rollins said.
Rollins added they’re starting to get back to the basics to eradicate the screw worm again by doing this:
“By mating the female screwworms, the sterile flies render their larva harmless and stamp out the threat to our animals. This is how we got rid of it back in the 1960s,” she said.
Lucas added that with the help of new technologies and strategies, he’s confident it won’t take 30 years to get rid of the new world screw worm like he said it did the first time.
