US boosts drone surveillance as flesh-eating screwworms spread in Texas - Ars Technica

Overview

US boosts drone surveillance as flesh-eating screwworms spread in Texas

Hundreds of Homeland Security drones retasked to survey wildlife and livestock.

Details

Hundreds of US government drones have switched from border surveillance to a different surveillance mission this summer—looking for signs of screwworm infestations in wild animals and livestock herds.

The flesh-eating New World Screwworm is the parasitic larva that emerges from eggs laid by flies in the open wounds or body openings of warm-blooded animals and humans, with untreated cases potentially leading to severe injury or death. Since the first screwworm cases were detected in South Texas in June, the US Department of Agriculture and US Customs and Border Protection have been conducting “one of the most extensive animal-health surveillance operations in the country,” according to the USDA in social media posts on platforms like X and Facebook on August 10.

The effort involves at least 200 drones owned by the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) described performing more than 1,000 drone flights and surveying more than 22,000 animals so far.

However, it’s unclear if any of the drone flights may have led to detections of animals infested by screwworms in the United States. The USDA dashboard showed 45 confirmed cases in domesticated animals across South Texas and New Mexico as of August 12. Most infestations involved cattle or sheep, with several dogs and a goat also being listed.

Ars reached out to CBP and USDA for additional information on the number of drones involved in the surveillance campaign and how many screwworm cases were detected as a result of such drone surveillance.

The main drone featured in the animal-health surveillance campaign appears to be the Skydio X10 quadcopter, which carries a thermal imaging sensor capable of detecting temperature differences. Such infrared sensors can detect higher body temperatures in animals that may have a fever related to secondary bacterial infections from screwworm infestation.

Drone operators working for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service under the USDA can also use high-resolution color imagery to look for open sores on animal bodies or check for abnormal behavior, such as “loner” animals, according to a USDA article and video that described an operation at a ranch in Junction, Texas, on June 18.

With the landowner’s permission, the drone teams arrived shortly after sunrise to survey both livestock and wildlife on the ranch. That is because the early morning work hours made it easier for the drone’s infrared sensors to detect warm-blooded animals against the relatively cooler ground.

The USDA is currently researching ways to use AI to “analyze drone imagery to detect wounds, identify animals and prioritize inspections,” according to the department.

Besides using drones for aerial surveillance, USDA has also relied on stationary cameras installed near trails to make more than 26,000 animal observations. It has also established and monitored more than 8,000 fly traps—although there have been no fly trap detections related to screwworm despite the recorded animal cases in the United States.

The drones represent “an important force multiplier” for surveying larger numbers of animals in potentially rough terrain but do not replace the “proven eradication method” of releasing sterile male flies to keep down the New World Screwworm fly population in the wild, according to the USDA article.

That method, called Sterile Insect Technique, was originally successful in eradicating flies from the United States and Central America and pushing the screwworm population back beyond the Darién Gap at the border of Panama and Colombia. But the screwworm flies breached the barrier in 2022 and have made their way northward, eventually leading to the new US cases in animals this year.

To combat the spread, the USDA jointly funds and manages a sterile fly production facility with Panama that releases about 100 million sterile flies each week. It also began releasing a similar number of sterile flies per week in Mexico after completing a $21 million renovation to a fruit fly facility in June.

Now that US screwworm cases have appeared, the USDA has been working with the US Army Corps of Engineers to build a new sterile fly production facility at Moore Air Base in South Texas. US Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said that facility is scheduled for completion by April 1, 2027, according to Border Report.

On July 29, Rollins also announced that the USDA was providing $25 million to build a separate sterile fly facility in Douglas, Arizona. The USDA press release suggested that “construction could be completed in as little as several months.”

The biggest threat that screwworm poses in the US is currently to the livestock industry. But Mexico has already seen over 500 human cases in 2025 and 2026, with a recent study suggesting that the infestation rate is accelerating.

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Key Takeaways

• US boosts drone surveillance as flesh-eating screwworms spread in Texas

• Hundreds of Homeland Security drones retasked to survey wildlife and livestock

• Hundreds of US government drones have switched from border surveillance to a different surveillance mission this summer—looking for signs of screwworm infestations in wild animals and livestock herds

• The flesh-eating New World Screwworm is the parasitic larva that emerges from eggs laid by flies in the open wounds or body openings of warm-blooded animals and humans, with untreated cases potentially leading to severe injury or death

• The effort involves at least 200 drones owned by the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency