Finally, something that Democrats and Republicans can get behind — a foul, flesh-eating monster pest.
From Chron:
U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-San Antonio), Republican Texas U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, and U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján, a New Mexico Democrat, introduced on Wednesday a bill called Strenghtening Tactics to Obstruct the Population of Screwworms ... or STOP Screwworms. The legislation would authorize funds allowing the Department of Agriculture to construct a sterile fly production facility.
Screwworms are nasty little buggers. The screwworm fly uses mammalian hosts to facilitate its disgusting lifestyle; females "lay 250 - 500 eggs in the exposed flesh of warm-blooded animals. The larvae hatch and burrow into the surrounding tissue as they feed."
Should the wound be disturbed during this time, the larvae burrow or ‘screw' deeper into the flesh, hence the larva's common name.
Obviously we have some incentive to keep this monstrous bug out of our country!
The "sterile fly production facility" authorized by this legislation would work by "produc[ing] sterile male screwworms" which would "then be released into infested areas by a special aircraft."
This ingenious method of insect control would see sterile screwworm flies mating with females, which would then unknowingly lay sterile eggs that would never hatch — thus greatly and quickly reducing the insect's numbers.
The worm "hasn't been a threat in the U.S. for years, but it was a plague for ranchers between the 1930s and 1980s, costing about $200 million per year in livestock loss by the 1950s." Sterilization efforts around that time eradicated the pest in the United States in just over a decade.
The U.S. has already halted cattle imports from Mexico in a bid to stop the fly from entering into the country. A sterile fly facility in Panama, meanwhile, has existed since 2006 to help combat the nasty bug.
Let's get that facility up and running cause I don't think flyswatters are going to cut it here!
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