The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Pets has barred pets rescued fro
m shelters in Texas and New Mexico in a beefed-up effort to stop the spread of the New World Screwworm pest that infests livestock.
“We will respond based on facts, not fear. But we will also continue to be the most aggressive state in the nation when it comes to protecting our livestoc
k, pets, wildlife, people, and agricultural economy from this threat,” Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson said in a statement last week.
The emergency rule, seen here, expands restrictions on animal imports from affected areas, prohibits the importation of rescue and shelter dogs and cats
from states with confirmed screwworm detections, and revises the definition of infested zones to any county with a confirmed screwworm detection and its surrounding counties, the statement noted.
Violators will be subject to fines, but Simpson did not say how the ban will be enforced or if vehicles entering Florida will be subject to search.
Cattle producers and agriculture officials have grown increasingly concerned about the parasite, which eats the flesh of the host animal, opening wounds and in
creasing the risk of deadly bacterial infections. Animals can die within a few weeks if not treated.
The screwworm is actually a fly larva that eats living flesh instead of dead material. The flies lay their eggs in open wounds of animals like cattle, but wildlife, pets and, o
ccasionally, even humans can be infested, the Associated Press has reported. Screwworm gets its name from the maggots’ habit of burrowing — or screwing — into a wound, according to the USDA.
So far, at least seven confirmed cases have been found, including three calves and a goat in Texas, and a dog from neighboring New Mexico.
See more beautiful photo albums Here >>>
Florida ranks 13th in the nation for cattle numbers, with 15,000 beef producers around the stat
e, the Florida Beef Council reports. A fast-spreading parasite could threaten ranchers’ livelihoods and result in many livestock insurance claims.
Experts said the El Nino, a natural warming cycle, should further heat a globe already warming
from fossil fuel pollution and will likely turbocharge extreme weather across the planet. Meteorologists
forecast it will rival — or exceed — a record El Nino that began in 1997 and helped trigger billions of dollars in damage from heat waves, floods, droughts, tornadoes and wildfires.
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officially confirmed the existence of the El Nino, which is a warming of the Pacific near the equato
r that affects weather patterns across the globe. NOAA’s announcement said there’s a 63% chance that the El Nino will get so intense this late fall and early w
inter that it “would rank among the largest El Nino events in the historical record going back to 1950.”
The warm, deep waters of an El Nino affect weather patterns by bringing “a lot of extra he
at to the surface, fueling a lot of extreme events for a lot of places around the world,” said Clark University climate scientist Abby Frazier.
She said, especially in the Pacific, “it can get dire very quickly.”
