USDA Airdrops Billions of Sterile Flies to Curb Flesh-Eating Screwworm

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Updated Jul 2, 2025, 09:49 PM

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to breed and air-drop billions of radiation-sterilised male flies over southern Texas and northern Mexico in an effort to suppress the New World Screwworm, a flesh-eating maggot that endangers livestock, wildlife, pets and, on rare occasions, humans. The parasite resurfaced in southern Mexico late last year, prompting renewed vigilance after decades of absence in the United States.

The sterile-insect technique—credited with eliminating the pest from North America in the 1960s and 1970s after 94 billion flies were released—works by flooding the environment with harmless males whose mating leaves wild females’ eggs unfertilised. Concern over a northward spread led the United States in May to suspend live cattle, horse and bison imports at the southern border until at least mid-September.

To scale up production, the USDA will open an US$8.5 million distribution centre in southern Texas by the end of the year and convert a fruit-fly facility in southern Mexico into a screwworm factory capable of producing 400 million sterile flies a week by July 2026. The Mexican conversion is budgeted at US$21 million and would complement an existing plant in Panama.

Scientists say the approach is more environmentally benign than pesticides but requires rigorous safeguards. A light aircraft dispersing sterile flies crashed near the Mexico–Guatemala border last month, killing three people, underscoring the operational risks and the need for strict containment at breeding and release sites.

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