Texas Will Now Combat Its Flesh-Eating Maggots with Billions of Flies

It's a good news, bad news... and good news again situation. The U.S. government has a plan to combat flesh-eating maggots in Texas. The bad news it's air-dropping flies on us. The good news, these flies can not procreate... allegedly.

Listen, it must be a bad situation if the best plan available is to breed billions of flies and unleash them upon American citizens. Which is exactly what the U.S. Government now plans to do.

Flesh-eating Maggots, Fed Will Now Drop Millions Of Flies On Texas

The pest being targeted is the flesh-eating larva of the New World Screwworm (NWS) fly. The Department of Agriculture plans to ramp up the breeding and distribution of adult male flies. The flies will be sterilized with radiation before they are released.

The U.S. was taken by surprise by the New World Screwworm infestation, as it had been considered eradicated in the U.S. since 1966. Unfortunately, it has re-emerged as a threat after an outbreak in Mexico.

This will not be the first time that the U.S. and Mexico have bred flies to combat an infestation. "Between 1962 and 1975, the U.S. and Mexico bred and released more than 94 billion sterile flies to eradicate the pest,"  according to the USDA.

The USDA has announced that it expects this new screwworm fly factory to be up and running in southern Mexico by next summer, July 2026. But that won't be fast enough, it has also announced that it plans to open a fly distribution center in southern Texas by the end of the year, to import and distribute flies from Panama if need be.