TALLAHASSEE – Florida enacted emergency rules Friday to prevent the New World screwworm from making its way to the Sunshine State.
The state created protocols to protect Florida’s cattle herds from the parasitic fly after it was found in Texas earlier this week.
Florida will not accept any warm-blooded animals from infested zones until June 10, according to the Florida Department of Agricultural and Consumer Services.
After June 10, all warm-blooded animals must be certified by Florida two days before arrival in the state and will need to be inspected by a veterinarian within five days before arrival.
Without the official certificates of veterinary inspection, animal imports from “high risk” areas will be quarantined and the supplier will be issued a fine, and animals from infested areas will be turned away at the state border.
“We are going to need a unified front from the government, our agricultural community, and the public to respond to this threat,” said Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson in a statement on X.
The screwworm is a fly that lays its eggs in body openings and feeds on live animals, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
It was previously eradicated from the U.S. in 1966, except for a small outbreak in the Florida Keys in 2017. But earlier this week, the first official case was documented in Texas after several years of the flies moving slowly from Central America up through Mexico.
The screwworm does not affect the quality of the beef and is not a food safety issue, said Pat Durden, the former president of the Florida Cattlemen’s Association who owns herds in the Panhandle.
The screwworm cannot spread through meat, poultry or dairy products, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
But the parasite can devastate meat production and create a significant economic impact, and its arrival comes as U.S. cattle numbers are at historic lows.
Florida had 1.5 million head of cattle in 2022, according to the Census on Agriculture, and the state’s cattle ranching and dairy industry brought in over $2 billion in sales that year.
“We’re going to have to be diligent and check our livestock and report any potential infestation and get them quarantined and treated as quickly as possible so we can kind of maintain some normalcy in commercial trading,” Durden told the News Service of Florida. “I don’t think anybody should be extremely worried.”
He said the cattlemen’s association has been in talks with the Florida Farm Bureau, and Simpson about the screwworm for over a year.
“We have a plan,” Durden said. “I trust the leadership in the commissioner’s office and his team with the state veterinarian…I think we’re in a good place, as good a place as we can be in.”
