atlantic: Screw maggots once killed millions of dollars worth of cattle annually in the southern United States. It spread from Florida to California, infecting not only cattle but also deer, squirrels, pets, and occasionally every warm-blooded animal alive. human.Actually, the scientific name of screwworm is C. hominivorax or “cannibals” — named after a horrific outbreak among prisoners at Devil’s Island, South America’s infamous 19th-century French penal colony.
For thousands of years, screwworms have been a terrifying reality in the Americas.in 1950sBut American ranchers are beginning to envision a new status quo. They dreamed that the entire country would be free of screwworms. At their request, the U.S. Department of Agriculture launched a massive, decades-long effort to eradicate the screwworm, first in the United States and then in Mexico and Central America, down to small areas of land. We have started a new initiative. Isthmus of Panama. The eradication was a great success. But the story doesn’t end there. Containing the disease is another thing. Continuing to contain the infection, as the coronavirus pandemic is currently proving so dramatically, is quite another.
To keep screwworms out, the Department of Agriculture maintains an international screwworm barrier along the Panama-Colombia border to this day. Barriers are invisible and kept in place by constant human effort. Every week, planes drop 14.7 million sterile screwworms over the rainforest that separates the two countries. In Panama, screwworm breeding factories operate 365 days a year. Inspectors cover thousands of square miles on motorcycles, boats and horses searching for screwworm infections north of the border. The slightest oversight can undo all the work you’ve done.
It reminds us that civilization requires effort. Great work by Sarah Chan.read All.
Tips: stone age herbalist.
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