In a move that has sent shivers down the spine of every bovine, ovine, and caprine creature south of the Mason-Dixon line, the United States Department of Agriculture has announced a new frontline in the war against the flesh-eating screwworm. Their weapons of choice? Flies. Yes, flies. And dogs. Because nothing says '21st-century biosecurity' like releasing more winged horrors into the air and hoping a few spaniels sniff out the carnage before it becomes a walking maggot buffet.
Let us take a moment to appreciate the sheer, crystalline audacity of this plan. The New World screwworm, a parasitic fly whose larvae feast on living flesh with the enthusiasm of a politician at a buffet, has been spotted in Mexico. And the Americans, bless their can-do hearts, have decided to fight fire with fire, or more accurately, maggots with more maggots. They are dropping sterile male screwworm flies from aeroplanes, a technique that has worked before but relies on the flies being, well, sterile. And not, you know, suddenly developing a taste for bovine buttock after a long flight.
Meanwhile, British vets are on standby. Of course they are. Because what else would they be doing on a quiet Tuesday afternoon? Perhaps they were in the middle of a particularly soothing cup of Earl Grey, or contemplating the existential horror of the badger cull, when the call came through. ‘Screwworm. Mexico. Get your tweezers.’ And so they wait, gin in hand, ready to face a parasitic invasion that sounds like the fever dream of a Victorian pathologist.
Let us not forget the dogs. Good, loyal, furry creatures now tasked with sniffing out screwworm infestations in cattle. One imagines them bounding through fields, tails wagging, only to recoil in horror as they catch a whiff of rotting, maggot-ridden flesh. ‘Is this what my life has become?’ the Labrador asks itself, before remembering the promise of a biscuit and soldiering on.
But the real question, the one that keeps me awake at night between the third and fourth gins, is this: Why are we still fighting parasites with more parasites? Have we learned nothing from the history of biological control? The cane toad in Australia. The mongoose in Hawaii. The release of sterile flies is not without risk, and the idea that we can simply drop a swarm of insects from a plane and hope for the best strikes me as the kind of plan you’d expect from a Bond villain with a hangover.
And yet, here we are. British vets on standby. Flies in the air. Dogs on the ground. And somewhere, in a Washington office, a USDA official is patting themselves on the back for a job half-done. I raise my glass to them. May their sterile flies remain sterile, their dogs remain loyal, and their vets remain adequately lubricated. For in the war against the screwworm, we shall need all the gin we can get.
