Screwworm eradication stories

Wow! Cool stories guys. I had always heard of the screw worm problem, but never realized what is it was, crazy. JM Ranch, Thanks for the story

I thought I might share a few stories I remember hearing from my grandfather while sitting around a campfire at deer camp in the hill country in the late 70's.

My grandfather was an Aggie entomologist. He worked in Kerrville in the 60's in the screwworm eradication program when it started in Texas. He told me how the screwworms would find any open sore on any animal, mainly cows, horses, sheep, goats and deer and if not treated the animal would likely die. He told me how the program originally started in Florida. He said entomologist tried for years to find a way to kill the flies and eventually discovered that they could expose the male fly to radiation, make it sterile and release it into the wild. The female only breeds once and then dies. They would drop thousands of flies in boxes from airplanes to disburse the flies. The Florida group tried out the theory on a couple of islands and eradicated the flies in one season.

So, after successfully bringing the program to Texas, my grandfather was picked to go meet LBJ at his ranch outside of Johnson City when the flies were to be disbursed on the ranch. My grandfather said he was explaining the process to LBJ when the plane arrived early. It flew in low and slow and started dropping boxes. The secret service did not know this was the plan and started to whisk LBJ away. After the commotion died down they all had a laugh.

He was transferred by Dow to Lake Jackson to work on the project at a new location. I can remember going to the lab with him in the early 80's and seeing the rooms full of piles of ground meat where they raised the flies. You talk about stink. I have since read that a sister facility in Mission, Texas released up to 213,000,000 flies a week in the late 70's.

He was very proud of the role they played in helping to increase the native deer population. The program in Texas started in the early 60"s and was shut down in the early 80's having made itself unnecessary, due to it's success. At one point he spent several weeks in Argentina helping them with implementation of their program.

I have since read that the populations of deer increased 3X on some south Texas ranches shortly following eradication. Some estimated that 80% of fawn crops were lost in years with high screwworm numbers.

Every time I hear someone talk about the current deer populations I think of my grandfather and smile.

Any of you old timers have any memories of those days? The

Even now when I hear the word "Peerless" I get a sick feeling in my gut. Peerless made a red liquid, looked similar to Big Red, that we would pour in the wound where the screw worms were. They would come wiggling out and fall on the ground and die. We would then smear Franklin Screw Worm Smear, a nasty black, stinky paste all around the hole to keep the flies from laying eggs around the wound and starting the whole process over.

Every single calf would have to be treated in the navel. Just the slightest cut or puncture anywhere would end up with an infestation. It was a terrible time for the rancher.

I'm probably gonna have nightmares tonight just because I remembered it. Sheesh!!!