Ranchers brace for flesh-eating screwworms

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Parasitic flies are pushing northward from Central America

Cattle on a ranch in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico, July 3, 2025. Chiapas state is ground zero for Mexico's screwworm outbreak. REUTERS/Daniel Becerril

Fifth-generation Texas rancher Kip Dove was only eight years old in 1973, but he remembers spending countless days trotting up to sick and dying cattle on horseback that year during the last major outbreak of flesh-eating screwworm.

Now surrounded by a healthy herd of longhorn cattle, Dove is anticipating the return of screwworm, the parasitic fly that eats livestock and wildlife alive.

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