Billions of Sterile Flies Air-Dropped Over Texas to Thwart Flesh-Eating Larvae
Sterile flies, bred by the USDA in Panama, prepare for airborne release over Texas and Mexico to combat New World screwworms—flesh-eating maggots notorious for decimating cattle and wildlife. Trending questions like “What kills New World screwworm?” and “Why do flies get sterilized?” hover over this $10M operation. As Edwin Burgess notes, “It’s an all-time great in translating science to solve some kind of large problem.”
Where Panama’s fly factory churned out insects by the billion, the U.S. now builds a new screwworm fly facility in Mexico, launching a fly distribution hub in southern Texas by year’s end. Searches spike for “How do sterile insects control pests?” and “Can maggots eat live animals?” Picture a thousand-pound cow versus a microscopic army of sterilized wingmen; as Michael Bailey warns, “A thousand-pound bovine can be dead from this in two weeks.”
Between 1962 and 1975, the U.S. and Mexico unleashed over 94 billion sterile flies—enough to outnumber every Texas barbecue attendee for centuries—just to keep one maggot in check.
