Why the US Drops 14.7 Million Worms On Panama Every Week

Video written by Amy Muller

[bootblacking]

I can't remember his name but there was a congressman who did elaborate shamings of "wasteful" government projects, he tore into the screwworm research saying the government had better things to do than study how flies have sex. And now it saves approximately $985 million dollars in dead cattle and other livestock every year. And prevents an enormous amount of human suffering and death. Science is important, even seemingly ridiculous inquiries, and deserves more of our public funding.

[Sailor-Man-Dave]

This program is probably THE MOST EFFECTIVE use of money in history!! When I was a kid, screwworms infected cattle, horses, people, really any warm-blooded animal. Their larva literally ate the victim alive, leaving gaping holes of the most revolting kind. Millions of head of livestock were lost to them, and tens of millions (maybe more) in lost earnings and treatment. Sterilizing the flies so that they produce non-viable offspring was a genius idea. If those who thought of it didn't get a Nobel Prize, they certainly should have. This is right up there with smallpox and polio vaccines and antibiotics. Thank you Lord for people like those who developed this!

[diegoulate]

I worked for the screw worm program in Costa Rica. A total success! I am very proud of being part of such an achievement

[grantcritchfieldstexastrai]

I'm old enough to remember when screwworms were a very real problem in Texas. I remember finding the paper boxes containing sterile flies while hiking through rangeland where they were dropped from planes over infested areas. A brief description of the project was printed on the box in Spanish & English for the finder to tear the box open & release the flies if the box was not already torn open from the impact with the ground.

I also remember that white-tailed deer were always preset in the area but never in the abundance the are currently. The deer population never really began growing exponentially until the 1970's & 80's mainly because of the disappearance of screwworms. I can only imagine how the fly program positively impacted other species of nongame wildlife as well. This was a very important successful project & it's sad that we have largely forgotten about it. Thanks for a great video about a great story.

[ArkadiBolschek]

Fun fact: this same strategy works on many other pests. A biologist cousin of mine has worked in a similar project to stop the tiger mosquito from spreading throughout Spain.

[SaschahiGG]

"shooting worms with radiation then releasing them by the millions" sounds like a movie explanation of how the zombie virus outbreak began

[rustworker]

I worked on a documentary in 2017 about the horrible Zika virus and in one of the sequences, scientists bred and released mosquitoes in a Brazilian city. Mosquitos are a carrier but these mosquitos were genetically modified so although they could breed, their lava would not survive. It worked on the same principle as the screw flies. It was very effective.

[emptymannull]

We have these in the Dominican Republic. They killed a young donkey I got back in the late 1990s. The vet gave us a purple spray that killed the maggots, but didn't work well because they were down in the inner ear eating towards the brain. Poor donkey 😢

[peternesset]

I live in Brazil, and my dogs have gotten screw worm infections. It is horrible, and apparently the period between laying the eggs and having a really gruesome infestation is very short.
The worm wall is a very worthwhile investment.

[robertlassetter]

Back in the early 1960s I was a kid running around the El Paso Texas airport where I had no business being. I saw a group of men loading boxes into an airplane. The small white boxes had a logo that looked like a bullseye to me. I asked, "Are they bullets?". One man laughed, said "Yeah", and opened the box in my face. It was a box of very active Flys. They had a good laugh as I freaked out. I wondered about men air dropping Flys. Now I know the story. Thanks.

[lostinrabbithole]

Imagine walking around there and all of a sudden a bunch of worms fall from the sky onto you

[ypyp]

This type of methodology works. I had a stunning specimen horse chestnut tree that became infested with an invasive horse chestnut miner moth. It very nearly killed the tree, but 2 years ago I started using pheromone traps to attract the male moths and now the tree is 99% free of leaf damage and getting less every flush of new moths. It killed thousands at first, with numbers slowly decreasing, the birds eat the remaining few, no pesticides needed. Only attracts and kills the one invasive species and I only use 1 trap per tree.

[indigofenix]

Broke: Exterminating pests with insecticides
Woke: Exterminating pests with natural predators
Bespoke: Exterminating pests with sexual exhaustion

[dingdiddledoo]

Doyle Conner who was a commissioner of agriculture for Florida played a large roll in this project. I remember when president Fox of Mexico invited him for a state visit and gave him an award after Mexico had eradicated the screw worms there.

[CrackedCandy]

A cowboy from wyoming told me how a rancher would see a steer that had its horns freshly removed would become infected with these. The worms would make their way into the fresh wound. He would ripe them then spit his tobacco "juice" into the wound and they would come running out. Crazy.

[nekomakhea]

The most important facts in this video are: 1. deer like doughnut holes 2. deer will come up to you and eat doughnut holes from your hand 3. you can claim you're eradicating invasive species sot that nobody will stop you from feeding doughnut holes to deer

[gnomusgang]

Sam from Wendover please don’t send Amy to Panama with the bugs

[diegonaranjogelbert]

I work in Pacora, Panamá next to the fly factory. Every now and again they release flies from the factory and all the buildings around get completely infested with flies, at least they are sterile!

[IvanIssaccs]

I love this.
Intercontinental cooperation with a clear demonstrable cost to savings ratio that prevents suffering. Brings me a big smile.

[isJay]

Remember this the next time you hear a politician whinging about "we spent $XXX million on investigating insect sex?!" "what a waste!!"
Lots of federal dollars are spent in weird ways to have impacts like this.