The flesh-eating New World screwworm has turned up in a wild animal in the United States for the first time, federal and state officials said Wednesday. The case was a female elk taken by a hunter on a game ranch in Pecos County, in far West Texas.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced the finding, and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department said it received confirmation on Oct. 21. A sample from the elk was identified as screwworm at the Agricultural Research Service's Knipling-Bushland livestock insects laboratory in Kerrville, according to TPWD.
No case has been reported in North Texas. Until now, every confirmed U.S. case had been in domestic animals. The first was a calf in Zavala County in June, according to the Texas Animal Health Commission.
What happens next
The Texas Animal Health Commission will adjust an infested zone it had already set up in the region, and USDA and TPWD are stepping up wildlife surveillance around the site, the federal agency said. KVIA in El Paso reported that USDA's dashboard also confirmed a case in cattle in Otero County, New Mexico, on Wednesday.
"We encourage all hunters and landowners to be vigilant for signs of New World screwworm while they are out in the field this season," Alan Cain, director of TPWD's Wildlife Division, said in the department's release.
What to look for
With deer season under way, TPWD asks hunters to check an animal before field dressing it or moving the carcass. Warning signs include maggots in a wound, a smell of rotting flesh, head shaking, loss of appetite and an animal that keeps apart from others.
Hunters should look closely at the eyes, ears, nose, mouth and genital area, run a hand along the body and check between the toes.
