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Hi and welcome back to The Land Steward Podcast. I'm your host BW and I have been looking forward to sharing with you some critical information about an emerging threat that requires all of us, no matter how we relate to the land, and that is the New World screwworm or NWS. For decades, the New World screwworm was a problem mostly of the past. It was successfully eradicated from the U.S. way back in 1966. And while we've seen some of those isolated outbreaks since then, like including one in Texas in 1976 and then another in Florida in 2016 which our director, Dr. Roel Lopez, had a front row seat to. So, he was a part of the team going out to monitor and to collect data so that we could learn more about how this infestation occurs and what it does to wildlife specifically. But since then, NWS has mostly been kind of out of our purview as kind of off our list of priorities, but it's once again kind of an emerging threat to Texas. So I definitely wanted to just go over a couple of pieces of information from a fact sheet that we published so that you can hear some of the things that are being recommended and pass those along to neighbors of yours whether they're landowners or not, because this definitely affects both urban and rural landowners.

I also wanted to share that the first conversation I had about the screwworm was several years ago with my grandfather who grew up in Bandera, but his dad, my great-grandfather Raymond Hicks, was the district director for zone one in Bandera at the time for the Soil and Water Conservation District - which he also helped establish in the 1930s, mostly with AgriLife Extension agents. So, by the time the first screwworm infestation had become a major problem in the U.S., Raymond was around his mid-fifties. So, he also kind of had this front row seat to the millions of dollars in damage that was caused by the screwworm at the time for the livestock industry and for his ranching neighbors, especially in Bandera in that area, you know, they're still very rural outside of San Antonio. So, my grandfather just remembered the years that his dad worked with other landowners and the county Extension agents to proactively manage some of those losses and just how devastating that was at the time, and how that devastation kind of spurred the outcomes of these sterilized flies that they used to eventually lead to the eradication in the U.S.

So today, thinking about wildlife, Texas is home to more than 100 mammal species that may be especially high risk if NWS reestablishes itself here. So, this includes our estimated more than 5 million white-tailed deer, which we all know and love. So, the stakes are pretty high. And not just ecologically and aesthetically, but also economically. You know, one of the studies that we conducted here at the Natural Resources Institute not too long ago found that the management and hunting of white-tailed deer alone, just white-tailed deer contributes more than $9 billion to the Texas economy every single year. Now for those of you who are right smack dab in the middle of bow season right now, I'm sure you can attest. Hunting is not a free sport by any means. So, to me, that completely makes sense, especially for the state of Texas.

So, needless to say, this fly is dangerous because it is a parasite. It's parasitic to not just the livestock that many farmers and ranchers, especially in Texas, are managing, but also wildlife. So, the flies lay their eggs in or near around wounds, just so you're aware of how this infestation occurs. But also, in mucus membranes of living, warm-blooded mammals. So once hatched, the larvae burrow into the wounds and begin feeding on live tissue. So, the infestations can lead to rapid health decline and of course, even death, especially for free-ranging wildlife that are not closely monitored and do not receive, you know, vet care like you would with your normal hoof stock or your livestock – cattle, sheep, goats. So, whether you’re urban or rural Texan, every single Texan I think has to be involved in this situation. The information that I'm going to share with you is critical one you know not just for monitoring and detecting NWS infestations. To help protect wildlife ranging from you know everywhere from black bears to mule deer to coyotes and squirrels. So, of course, this is stretching all across the state now.

So when you're out monitoring your property here's what you need to look for, if you listen to nothing else in this episode. First check for open sores and tissue damage found on living, warm-blooded wildlife. Remember, a wound as small as a tick bite can become infested. So, you might also notice larvae visible in the wounds. So, infestation commonly occurs in the head and neck region, but any region with a wound is vulnerable for newborn animals. So right now, especially if you do have cattle livestock if you're dropping calves, the umbilical region is highly susceptible. Other highly susceptible areas are mucous membranes like eyes, nose, mouth, and ears if a wound is present. So the bucks, you know, that are early in the season right now that have, you know, maybe fresh wounds where their antlers shed or maybe their antlers were damaged while they're still in velvet, they're still susceptible to the infestation. So mid to late season, which is kind of, you know, what we'll be heading into over the next month or so in Texas, we're looking for wounds that often occur from, you know, fighting or maybe even defending their territory, especially when they're in rut and maybe even in post-rut.

So secondly, please pay attention to smell and behavior. I know sometimes we're out riding around or when you're just walking around checking the cows, especially those newborn calves hitting the ground. Just pay attention to what you see. And I think all of us know that you observe more wildlife when you're out and about rather than in town or sitting around at the house. So anytime you're out, you know, taking care of regular chores, just pay attention. So, an infestation often produces a pretty foul odor. You may also observe some strange behavior in wildlife, not dissimilar to the things that we talked about and have seen with chronic wasting disease. So, the head shaking, general discomfort, irritated behavior, lethargy, and maybe even isolation from other animals. If you regularly observe and monitor whether it's wildlife or livestock, you usually can pick up on things that seem a little out of the ordinary. So just be on high alert, be vigilant, and be thinking about some of those specific descriptions of different behaviors. As a critical safety warning that I must share, do not attempt to approach live wildlife closer than a reasonable viewing distance. So, we recommend no closer than 25 yards. If you're a bow hunter, that's a really great range. But if you're just trying to observe, you know, try to stay at least 25 yards away from an animal, especially if you think that, you know, whatever you're looking at is worth investigating. So use monitoring tools, whether that is your binoculars or whatever you got on you to get closer to get a better view. Obviously monitoring wild, free-ranging animal populations is considerably more difficult than monitoring confined animals, but if possible, monitor the animals on your property every few days for signs of NWS.

It's usually suggested that you keep daily observation records to better track your animal inspections. Most ranching operations have record books regardless of what livestock or wildlife they have out there but just make a note whenever you notice something different so that you can keep track of those observations in the in the days and locations because over time some of those details get a little bit fuzzy. And if you do end up in a situation where an inspection comes up and you realize that something is truly off it will, I think it'll be a handy tool in your toolbox as you're trying to communicate some of the things that have developed you know in the days leading up to that. While you know of course monitoring our wildlife is a different challenge it definitely helps increase some of that vigilance that we're looking for to be able to assist some of our state and federal agencies in responding to the new outbreak.

So, of course, pay attention to when the risk is highest. Infestation like we talked about the potential varies based on seasonal behaviors and changes. So, of course, birthing season. This places females and their young at risk for infection particularly due to the vulnerability of the umbilical cord region of newborns or wounds near the genitalia of the mother. The high mortality rates of females in offspring can severely reduce populations of large mammals, especially. Of course, breeding season. Males competing for dominance are more prone to open wounds, especially deer species like we talked about. Those are things that anyone who spends time near wildlife, whether you're hunting or not, you've observed these different, more aggressive behaviors.

During the 2016 NWS outbreak in Florida, the mature males had the highest mortality rates among key deer during the rut. And that's something that I've heard Dr. Lopez talk about a lot. In most of the pictures, the documentation that they took that had the most significant impact on understanding how the infestation works, how the screwworm and the larvae works, those were on male Key deer. So they look, you know, the Key deer are a tiny deer species. They look like younger bucks, but even, you know, for the Key deer species, they were mature bucks that were the most susceptible during that outbreak.

So, the third one here is antler activity. So male deer species also have higher rates of infection during velvet. You know, when they're shedding their velvet, when they're shedding their antlers, and then when they have new antler growth.

So as landowners, we have a couple of different monitoring tools that you can use. And these are just things that you may, it may not occur to you, “Oh, this is something that I can use,” for just making sure we're monitoring for NWS. Same thing for CWD. Trail cameras. So they're useful tools, obviously, for identifying wildlife displaying clinical signs of NWS infection. Place cameras where wildlife frequent, such as water and food sources, trails and crossings. To get the best results place the camera roughly two to three feet high about knee height which for me is not two to three feet high that's about a foot off the ground and approximately 15 feet from the target area. So, it's also recommended to orient the camera to face north to minimize false triggers and low-quality photos caused by shadows and sun rays.

So, if you are somebody who regularly monitors wildlife, whether you're hunting or not, usually we think about a couple of these different aspects of camera placement, but if you're somebody who is truly interested in making sure that you're able to monitor wildlife coming across your property and you're watching for those signs of NWS, that height is about the neck and head height of most of your mature deer, but you'll be able to see a good ways away, depending on your camera. But that north-facing directive there is also very helpful, again, to not overexpose your images because of the sun either setting or rising and watch for those low-hanging branches that may trigger the game camera to go off if the wind blows. So, all of those are just best practices of setting up a game camera in general, but those are also going to help you get the clearest imagery if you're truly monitoring for things like NWS where you need that crisp detail to be able to see what's going on. So obviously hunting stands, blinds, viewing areas, even if you are bird watching or just watching the sunset and enjoying the outdoors, you know, those areas provide the same kind of opportunities to survey animals using binoculars or maybe even scopes. So those high-quality optics will help increase your ability to identify the potentially infected animals more quickly and accurately. You know, you're able to see where those wounds might be. You're able to watch their behavior, see if there's anything that's out of the ordinary. You can take notes, take notes on herd composition, maybe even if you're tracking bucks or does or fawns, that can help you kind of track populations over time as well.

So, urban wildlife watching, if you're in a suburban or an urban area, monitoring animals like deer, squirrels, raccoons, and coyotes that frequent residential areas is a meaningful step for a lot of that early detection in more urban settings. So again, using binoculars or even security systems to help maintain that safe distance. We’ve had a lot of images come in to the Institute - people looking for IDs on things when they come up on their Ring cameras. So, I get a lot of Ring camera photos, especially for our ocelot project. More times than not it's a bobcat, but sometimes we've had a couple that couple pictures that we've sent off to biologists just just to verify an ID what that wildlife is, but they're crisp most of the time. They're very clear pictures, sometimes even comical, so whatever you have at your disposal to use for wildlife monitoring just be aware be cognizant that if you see something strange there are a couple of emerging possibilities and risks to be aware of.

The last note here is watching for scavengers. So pay attention to signs of scavengers like vultures and coyotes. If you see vultures circling your property you should investigate, you know, what is attracting them. Most landowners, if you’re in a rural setting, or you know, own private land outside of urban areas most of the time we're watching for buzzards or any kind of circling because we want to make sure that it's not, you know, if you have livestock we want to make sure it's not a calf, we want to make sure that there's not a vulnerable fawn buried up somewhere that, you know, has been discovered. So just be mindful of those things, make sure that you're aware of any of that kind of behavior on or near, around your property.

So, here is the last critical piece of information on reporting and then management. So, let's say you suspect that you found an animal infested with New World screwworm. The directive that we have is to immediately report any sightings of the live animals with larvae and then if you suspect that an animal that's already expired was infected with New World screwworm, reporting is critical, obviously, to implement some of those management actions necessary to kind of curtail the spread of NWS. But it's also the same for chronic wasting disease. So, contact your local Texas Parks and Wildlife Department biologist or the Texas Animal Health Commission. You can also talk with AgriLife Extension, you know, your county agent that's assigned to your county is also on high alert and they're ready to receive those types of information, but they can also serve as key contacts to help connect you with proper sources and official reporting agencies.

So for landowners managing captive wildlife contact your TPWD biologist. If you house exotic hoof stock contact the Texas Animal Health Commission or your local vet for some of the treatment options. You have to comply with any movement and treatment requirements that state and federal agencies may implement for animals. That same series of compliance came up during the height of chronic wasting disease when we were trying to limit the transporting of animals who may have been infected by chronic wasting disease. The same goes for New World screwworm. For general wildlife management strategies specific to your property, you can always talk to your Parks and Wildlife biologists. They can assist you with population monitoring and methods and harvest recommendations through programs like their Technical Guidance and Managed Lands Deer Program, which we have talked about as something that, you know, the Managed Lands Deer Program is something that my family has adopted on our property. So, we work really closely with our biologist and she is able to not only recognize when something is off, but she has now several years of data to help us understand what you know the composition of our wildlife, the carrying capacity on our property, and how to make the best possible decisions for the wildlife under our care. So, population monitoring and detailed record keeping are crucial. A lot of that for more adaptive management strategies if NWS does impact wildlife on your property. You should keep track of key demographic information like abundance, fawn to doe ratios, and buck to doe ratios. If that is something you're interested in looking at, you know, over time those are data points that are pretty crucial for understanding your, your, especially your deer populations. So, if you notice any changes in your populations, obviously talk to your biologist about that.

Lastly, if you find an animal that you believe may be orphaned, wildlife biologists generally advise people to not interfere with or remove the wildlife as hard as that might be sometimes. You know, the same goes for folks who who may think that they need to move or maybe to render an animal to wildlife rehabilitators, especially if they exhibit signs of NWS that goes towards some of the limiting of transporting animals we try to refrain from moving those animals or potentially even things like dropping larvae as you're moving them or maybe even infecting other areas as they're being transported.

This is, you know, it's not a new threat for the U.S. and definitely not for Texas. There are efforts that are underway right now to continue doing a more robust version of what was done to eradicate the species in the late '60s. So, we hope that some of those efforts will also produce some of the really great sterilized fly results that we saw during that first infestation period. But hopefully this was educational for you. Hopefully you heard some things that might be helpful. The most important thing that we can do is stay vigilant, continue to monitor, know the signs, know what the risks are, and then know who to call, and make sure that you are not the wildlife species, you know, it's different if it's your livestock and you need to call the vet and, you know, have a figure out what's going on and what the next best step is. But for wildlife, in particular are free ranging, so it's a little more challenging, but it's something that we can do as a collective, both urban and rural landowners and land managers alike. So, thank you guys for listening. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. I'm going to drop the fact sheets that I shared some of this information from that were published in partnership with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension. I'm going to put that in the show notes for you, but feel free to reach out. If you have questions, you can always reach out to the Natural Resources Institute, to your County Extension Agent, to Parks and Wildlife, and the Texas Animal Health Commission. All right, we will talk soon.