Dropping the flies from airplanes wasn’t some fear-factor stunt, but rather an intentionally crafted plan to save the country, its people, and its animals from these warm-blooded vampire-like flies that are known to feed on the flesh of wounded animals and kill them alive. Most Central American countries hadn’t seen an outbreak of NWS in the past 20 years, but when this fly was spotted a few months ago in southern Mexico, scientists had to do something; otherwise, the flaring of the fly population would start to murder household pets, decimate trading of animals like cattle, horses, and bison, and even kill humans.
According to the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the scientific name for NWS, the parasite, is Cochliomyia hominivorax, which translates to "man-eater.” Doctor Phillip Kaufman, a professor and head of the department of entomology at Texas A&M University, told CNN, “After mating, the female fly finds a living host, lands on its wound, and will lay up to 200 to 300 eggs. After 12 to 24 hours, those eggs all hatch, and they immediately start burrowing and feeding on the tissue of that animal, causing very, very large wounds to form.” A NWS fly is capable of killing a thousand-pound cow in less than 10 days.
The plan they sought out to relinquish these dot-sized predators was to use their own biology against them. A chemical sprayed in the air couldn’t prevent the population from the giant throngs of these blood-sucking flies. So, the only strategy they were left with was to prevent the already existing flies from reproducing further. If they could control them from mating and laying more eggs, they would disrupt their reproduction cycle and prevent their bloodlust from leaching America’s lifeblood.
Moving on, the USDA is planning to build an NWS fly factory, which is expected to be up and running in southern Mexico by July 2026. A fly distribution center in southern Texas is also on the cards, most likely by the end of the year, so that the flies can be imported and distributed from Panama on time if necessary.
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