Oh, fantastic. Just what West Texas needed to round out its charm portfolio: flesh-eating maggots. The New World screwworm is back after a 60-year hiatus, prompting Governor Abbott to declare a statewide disaster across all 254 counties. Because nothing says “Texas is thriving” quite like a parasitic blowfly that lays eggs in open wounds so its larvae can literally burrow into and feast on live mammal flesh. While it’s a cataclysmic threat to the state’s multi-billion-dollar cattle industry, it’s also perfectly happy to eat your pet dog, cat, or, you know, you.
Naturally, the systemic fallout is going beautifully. A 13-county quarantine has locked down animal movement, which veterinarians warn will trap stray animals in already-overflowing shelters—including right here in Lubbock—leading to predicted “mass euthanasias” purely due to a lack of space. But don’t worry, a rancher down near Waco helpfully recontextualized this nightmare as a “UFC fight” and “survival of the fittest” that will ultimately “lean up the industry” and give consumers better meat. It’s truly comforting to know our local animal shelters might face unprecedented crises just so some guy’s cattle herd can get a forced upgrade.
But don’t panic, because U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins is throwing $105 million of government funding at the problem, and our very own Texas Tech University snagged a piece of the pie. The cutting-edge tactical strategy to save us? The USDA is teaming up with Homeland Security to deploy AI-controlled surveillance drones, unleas insect-killing fungi, and breed a specialized army of male flies with—this is a real quote—”hyper-active sex drives.” The goal is to have these sex-crazed flies trick the female screwworms into mating and laying unviable eggs.
Because when you think of high-tech biological warfare involving border-patrolling cyber-drones and hornier-than-usual flies to stop a flesh-eating maggot plague, you definitely think of Lubbock. Let’s just hope those genetically modified flies stick to the screwworms and don’t wander into the bars on Broadway.
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