Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins launched a facility in South Texas on Wednesday that will release millions of sterile flies to fight the threat of flesh-eating parasites that are infecting cattle in Mexico and could reach the U.S. border soon, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) said in a June 18 statement.
The parasite, New World screwworm (NWS), is a “devastating pest that causes serious and often deadly damage to livestock, wildlife, pets, and in rare cases, humans,” the USDA said. Some U.S. agriculture and cattle industry officials are worried that if the migration isn’t checked, the NWS flies could reach the border by the end of summer.
