Mosquitoes & more: Big Country workshop focuses on disease-carrying pests

ABILENE, Texas () – The Taylor County Agricultural Extension Office hosted a seminar on pest control to educate participants about pesticides and the insects that spread disease.
The agriculture industry is facing many challenges. While weather and the lack of moisture play a large factor in those challenges right now, farmers and ranchers' concerns also encompass pest insects and their effect on the wellness of their crops and livestock. Because of this, the Taylor County Ag Extension Office hosted experts from around the state to give a Vector Control Workshop.
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'Vector control' describes a strategy to eradicate pest animals or insects to prevent the spread of the diseases they carry. City officials, forest service workers, and even private individuals came from across the state to learn the ins and outs of pest population control, and Professor of Extension Entomologist at Texas A&M University, Dr. Sonja Swiger, spoke about this workshop's main focus.
'We want them to be knowledgeable when it comes to using their pesticides, and that's why they're here, mostly so that they can be trained properly in that. But we also want them to be educated in what they're trying to approach with the pesticide usage,' Swiger shared. 'We try to make sure that they're aware of why they're doing their job, why they're out there controlling those mosquitoes, and why that's important.'
While the workshop discusses a wide variety of pest insects, such as fleas, ticks, and certain fly species, the participants say their main concerns are mosquitoes, and Swiger highlights the key diseases they are most concerned with.
'West Nile is always our issue. That is an annual thing. Since it arrived, it's been every year, but we also watch other viruses. The Dengue virus is one that comes up through the tropics. That can be a concern in the United States. A couple of years ago, Malaria was a concern as well. So, we watch all of them, but West Nile is our main focus,' Swiger explained.
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The workshop also provides certification for individuals in the use of specific pesticides to combat these insects. Representatives from various city municipalities attended, and the hours spent in these classes contribute to maintaining their certifications for handling these pesticides. However, these certifications are not solely for those who operate within a large organization or governing agency.
Monty Moeller is a farmer in the northern region of Big Country who utilizes this class as a cost-saving strategy. Moeller explains that due to the drought conditions faced by farmers in recent years, they have been struggling to cover expenses, such as hiring third-party services to apply specialized pesticides in their fields. To counter these rising costs, Moeller has obtained the necessary certifications to use certain pesticides himself, eliminating the need to outsource this task at a higher price.
'I have a private applicators license where I can apply chemicals that are restricted use to the farm and ranch. It's been tough. It's been really tough. So, they have to cut corners where they can. So, if they can apply their own chemicals, that saves them some money,' Moeller said.
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Due to those same drought conditions, the Big Country will likely see a delay in the mosquito season, but Swiger went on to say that when it does eventually hit, measures like spraying pesticides will still need to be taken in order to fight the risks these disease-carrying insects can spread throughout our area.
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USA Today

17 hours ago

• USA Today

'Killer bees' keep spreading (and killing) across the US

Scientists say the bees' temperament is to ward off predators. But unsuspecting humans will find them to be aggressive, spiteful and terrifying. Africanized honey bees, often called "killer bees," are now found in 13 states and are slowly spreading northward, attacking people, livestock and pets along the way. In the last three months alone, a man mowing his property died after a bee attack, three people were taken to the hospital after tree trimmers disturbed a colony, hikers ran a mile to get away from an agitated hive and a woman and three horses were swarmed by bees spooked by a lawn mower. The horses later died from "thousands" of stings, their owner said. Scientists say the bees' temperament is a defense mechanism to ward off predators – and note that because honey bees die after stinging, they are sacrificing themselves to protect their colony. But to unsuspecting humans, killer bees sure seem aggressive, spiteful and terrifying. They've been known to follow their victims for up to a mile – even following cars and trucks – and can sting through regular beekeeping gear. In the attack on the Texas horses, owner Baillie Hillman said, "they didn't give up." As parts of the west become warmer and drier, it's only going to get worse as the bees' preferred climate moves northward. There's no national database of deaths related to bee stings, but a 2023 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that on average 72 people died a year from hornet, wasp and bee stings. "In Texas, every year there's at least four big (Africanized bee) attacks that make the news," said Juliana Rangel, a professor of apiculture (beekeeping) at Texas A&M University, where they're widespread in the wild. "Killer bees" first made headlines in the 1990s when they began to appear in the United States, spawning alarming news stories and a surge of horror movies such as Deadly Invasion, The Swarm, The Savage Bees. Today, people in the South and the Southwest are learning to live with them, but the danger remains, especially when the highly defensive bees first appear in an area or when people accidentally run into a colony. Africanized honey bees don't survive in areas with cold winters and don't like high levels of rain, making for natural cutoffs in areas where temperatures fall, Rangel said. However in the coming decades, climate change means the bees could potentially move into southeastern Oregon, the western Great Plains and the southern Appalachian mountains, according to research published in 2014. "By 2050 or so, with increasing temperatures, we're going to see northward movement, mostly in the Western half of the country," said Rangel. How dangerous are Africanized honey bees? Africanized honey bees don't have more, or more potent, venom than Western honey bees. "The stings feel the same," said Rangel. What differentiates them is the numbers a colony sends out to attack. While each bee can only sting once before it dies, a colony of Africanized honey bees will send out proportionally more bees in a defensive response, leading to more stings. "If I'm working around one of my European honey bee colonies and I knock on it with a hammer, it might send out five to ten individuals to see what's going on. They would follow me perhaps as far as my house and I might get stung once," said Ellis. "If I did the same thing with an Africanized colony, I might get 50 to 100 individuals who would follow me much farther and I'd get more stings. It's really an issue of scale," he said. Africanized honey bees are also much more sensitive to potential threats. "You could be mowing a lawn a few houses away and just the vibrations will set them off," Rangel said. There are multiple reports of people cutting into colonies when trimming trees, clearing brush or doing landscaping. In some cases tree trimmers set off an attack merely by throwing a rope over a branch. In toxicology, researchers speak of the LD50, the lethal dose required to kill 50% of those exposed to it, said Rangel. For honeybee stings, it's calculated at about 9 stings per pound of weight. So half of people who weigh 150 pounds might die if they got 1,350 stings. That's unlikely with Western honey bees, but can happen with Africanized bees. In 2022, an Ohio man suffered 20,000 bee stings when cutting tree branches. He survived but only after being put in a medically-induced coma. What states have Africanized honeybees? At least 13 state have reported Africanized honeybees. In the south, southern Florida has the highest numbers. "From Tampa to Orlando to Daytona, south of that a large percentage of the feral bee population are of African decent. North of that we don't have much," said Ellis. Africanized bees have also been reported in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi, though they don't seem to thrive in those wetter environments as much. The bees have found a natural home in the Southwest, in part because the landscape is much like the arid and semi-arid parts of Africa they're originally from. Feral colonies are common in southern California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and especially Texas. They've also been seen in southwest Arkansas, southern Utah and about two-thirds of Oklahoma, said Szalanski. Where did killer bees get their killer instincts? There are around 20,000 species of bees on the planet and only 12 of them are honey bees. Of those, 11 are found in Asia and only one in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. It is called Apis mellifera, the Western honey bee, said Jamie Ellis, a professor of honey bee research at the University of Florida. There are multiple subspecies of Apis mellifera. It was one of these, the East African lowland honey bee (Apis mellifera scutellata), that was imported to Brazil in the 1950s. In the areas where East African lowland honey bees live, they have many predators so they've evolved to be more defensive, said Ellis. "They're not really aggressive, they're not just looking for a fight," he said. "They're just trying to communicate that, 'You are too close to us. We don't want you here – go away.'" That can feel pretty scary when they're coming after you, said Rangel. She's done research on bees in Belize, where people keep hives far from their homes and livestock and put on their protective beekeeping clothing in their trucks before getting out near a hive. "They can pursue you in your vehicle for a mile," she said "The only thing preventing them from killing you is the veil. It's like a cloud of bees that all want to sting you. It's scary." How did Africanized honey bees get to the United States? Africanized honeybees are a cross between Western honey bees, from Europe and the East African lowland honey bee. They first occurred in 1956, when a prominent Brazilian geneticist, Warwick Kerr, brought African bees to Brazil to hybridize them with Western honey bees from Europe, which didn't do well there. His plan was to breed bees that were better adapted to Brazil's climate while retaining the gentleness and high honey-producing traits of the Western honey bees. He didn't get the chance. A year later, 26 Africanized queen bees were accidentally released into a nearby forest, where they thrived, said Kirk Visscher, an emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Riverside. "The beekeeping industry in those areas is now far more vital than it was – they just have mean bees," he said. That hybrid between the two subspecies, called Africanized honey bees, began to make its way north, arriving in south Texas in 1990. "They spread a lot quicker than what people thought was possible. They never thought they could get from Brazil to Texas in a span of less than 40 years," said Allen Szalanski, a professor of entomology at the University of Arkansas. "But they did." The two bee subspecies are impossible to differentiate without either DNA analysis or careful observation of their wing vein patterns. It is their behavior that sets them apart. Most of the danger is from feral hives in the wild. Beekeepers carefully manage their hives to keep Africanized queens out. Because bees are so critical to agriculture, the movement of bees is regulated in many states. Most have a bee inspector to oversee the process. Currently a total of 38 states regulate the movement of honey bees within the United States and require a permit or health certificate to do so. Four states, Arizona, Kansas, North Dakota and Oregon, have no regulations on the movement of bees, according to research published in 2022. Another eight states have no regulations requiring permits or health certificates for the interstate movement of bees. Africanized honey bees aren't all bad Scientists who study bees emphasize that while Africanized honey bees are more defensive, they hold a lot of promise for overall honey bee health because they're more pest and disease resistant and are very genetically diverse. That's important because honey bees play a critical role in agriculture and the environment and have been subject to large die-offs in the past two decades. In 2017, one-third of the nation's hives perished. Breeding and even gene manipulation could result in better – and gentler – bees, said Ellis. "Although they have heightened defensive behaviors, science may be able to maximize their positive traits and minimize their negative traits," he said. What should you do if you encounter an Africanized honeybee hive? Because of their highly defensive nature, if you encounter aggressive bees, the best response is to leave – fast. "Get away as quickly as possible. Don't jump in water, don't swat with your arms. Just run away as as fast as you can," said Ellis. "You might want to pull your shirt up around your nose and mouth to protect against stings that could cause swelling of your airway." In general, the biggest threats are to tethered or penned livestock and pets that can't get away as well as humans using heavy equipment who accidentally get too close to a hive without being able to hear the angry buzzing of the bees. Once you've evacuated the area, call for professional help. "If you're in a rural area, it's very likely these bees have been Africanized," said Rangel. Nobody should try to deal with a colony on their own "just to save a few bucks," she said. "You don't want to mess with them."

Forbes

3 days ago

• Forbes

Can Improving Taxation In Africa Help Meet Health Needs?

Waiting for malaria vaccination in Uganda's Apac District (Photo by Hajarah Nalwadda) In Sierra Leone, there was a time when 'people were so happy to pay' local taxes, says Joanna Favour Tom-Kargbo, an economic justice manager for the NGO Christian Aid. For instance, her council would make a documentary to show where the money was being spent, such as road or market construction. In that kind of situation, 'you don't need to coerce people to pay. Citizens were willing.' The situation changed when the government used tax revenue to put on a lavish concert, Tom-Kargbo reports. It was poorly attended, and people considered it a waste of money. Trust in the tax system was broken. But this kind of trust can be repaired—and it may be more crucial than ever now. After the U.S. rapidly shut down its main foreign aid agency and eliminated over 80% of aid projects, many countries were left in the lurch. This was especially pressing for those that depended on U.S. assistance for basic health services, from vaccination to malaria prevention. Researchers have estimated that nearly 300,000 people, most of them children, have died from the resulting vacuum of healthcare. One of those is Bukar Mohammed, a 7-year-old boy living with sickle cell disease in Northern Nigeria. After he developed a fever in February, his mother raced with him to their usual clinic—only to be told it had closed the week before due to an abrupt cutoff of funds. The Trump administration, development officials in other wealthy countries, and aid critics around the world have called for nations receiving foreign assistance to find more of their own funds for development programs. This is partly out of necessity. 'If the general overseas development system freezes or decreases, then taxes become even more important than what they currently are,' notes Giovanni Occhiali, a development economist at the International Centre for Tax and Development. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, which itself faces dozens of layoffs amidst a shrinking pool of money for global health, is urging African countries to fund their health sectors through improved and increased taxation. This could include solidarity levies, including taxes on airline tickets, imports, and cell phone services (though taxes on mobile financial transactions have proven very unpopular in countries including Ghana and Uganda). One UN proposal is for all low- and middle-income countries to tax revenue amounting to at least 15% of their GDP. To some extent, this turn toward domestic taxation is now happening. According to a World Health Organization survey, at least 24 countries are increasing domestic public funding for health. (However, more countries are cutting costs.) Governments are looking to increased taxation for areas beyond health. The Ethiopian government has proposed an organizational tax that to support disaster response, for instance. But in general, earmarking tax revenue for a specific purpose can risk making a country less responsive to emergencies. While governments may be able to temporarily reallocate some resources based on need, it's no simple task to find more domestic money to plug the gaps. Many people are calling for new taxes on unhealthy products like tobacco, alcohol, and sugar-sweetened beverages, both to increase public revenue and strengthen public health. Such 'sin taxes' already exist in South Africa and Botswana. In Zimbabwe, the finance minister recently introduced them in order to dedicate the proceeds to health projects. Yet there will be a lag as these taxes are rolled out. Thus, the World Health Organization is advising countries affected by the foreign assistance cuts to start the sin taxes right away, while rolling out health insurance in the longer term. Overall, improving tax collection sustainably and equitably takes a long time. It took Togo about 12 years to increase the tax–GDP ratio by 5%, according to Occhiali; for most African countries, growing taxation by half a percentage point a year is ambitious. 'Increasing domestic revenue mobilization is always a long-term endeavour,' Occhiali cautions. 'Any type of tax reform really needs to be carefully planned and executed over a number of years.' Indeed, tax changes that seem abrupt or unjust can have tragic consequences. Kenya was shaken by protests last year against proposed taxes on basic goods, following a string of other new taxes. Security forces killed at least 80 demonstrators, by one estimate. The outcry led to a government pledge to avoid new taxes. In Sierra Leone, 'most of the things have been taxed' already, says Tom-Kargbo. Particularly harsh for women feeding their families has been a 2024 tax of 5% on imported rice. This is aimed at bolstering Sierra Leone's own rice production, but the upshot is that many families have simply been forced to eat less rice. There are also now taxes on phone calls and text messages. In the context of waning foreign assistance around the world, Occhiali says, 'there is a risk that governments facing immediate cuts…might be incentivized to take short-term action that might prove counterproductive in the long term.' He advises focusing on better administering the taxes that already exist, rather than raising new ones. It may not be as glamorous as a rushed new tax, but strengthening the foundations of tax systems would ultimately be more helpful. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), many countries could increase their tax-to-GDP ratios, by up to 9 percentage points, by improving tax design and public institutions. Rice for sale at the Lumley Market in Freetown, Sierra Leone (Photo by Saidu Bah) There are many reasons that tax is under-collected in some African countries. One is insufficient resourcing of tax agencies, which creates a vicious circle of not enough money for the overall public purse. When it comes to sufficiently taxing wealthy Africans, the difficulty tends to not be the legal system, but gaps in data and administrative capacity, says Ronald Waiswa, who worked for the Uganda Revenue Authority before joining the African Tax Administration Forum. Corruption is also a problem. And there's a more amorphous factor as well: low trust in governments to fairly collect tax and use it properly. If residents don't see the benefits of taxation, they have little reason to support it. They can even see their own governments as parasitic. As in many African nations, more tax collected in Sierra Leone goes to paying off external debt (primarily to the World Bank and IMF) than is spent on education and health. Sierra Leoneans aren't necessarily seeing the benefits of the tax they're increasingly being asked to pay, which often doesn't even remain in the country. 'We're seeing the impact of poor-quality health services. We are seeing the impact of poverty continue,' Tom-Kargbo notes. 'People are saying, 'Where even are our tax monies going?'' Sierra Leone has already tried earmarking taxes for free healthcare services, Tom-Kargbo reports. The problems have been implementation, accountability, and transparency—and inadequacy in these areas also lowers trust in the revenue authorities. In Ghana, transparency related to tax reforms makes people more likely to support them. In Somalia, focusing on services makes people especially comfortable with paying taxes. Systems are currently stacked against poorer consumers. In Uganda, 'Our domestic tax system now is really regressive,' comments Africa Kiiza, an economic justice adviser for Christian Aid. High earners are paying the same tax on salt, soap, and sugar as unemployed people, he says. Yet ordinary Ugandans aren't seeing those consumption taxes necessarily translate into public services like education and health. In South Africa, the Institute of Economic Justice is calling in the short term not for increased sales taxes, but increased corporate taxes and reduced tax breaks (though some economists believe that South Africa's VAT taxes can be designed well to not be regressive). Occhiali is not in favor of further increasing consumption taxes either. Sales tax is 'already the main source of government revenue across most of the continent,' he points out. 'It sounds a bit perverse to imagine that we should focus on taxes that are already performing relatively ignore the two main sources of revenue that are clearly underperforming': property tax and income tax. In the interest of equality, the Africa CDC recommends 'tiered tax structures to protect low-income populations while ensuring wealthy individuals and corporations contribute more.' Concretely, this could involve not taxing women selling tomatoes informally, for instance, but high earners. This may seem like a straightforward principle, but it's actually been the subject of much debate. One reason that so many African workers' incomes aren't taxed is that many of these workers are operating outside the formal system of labor contracts and official payments. 'Only about 4% of the population on average in the continent pays personal income tax,' according to Occhiali. Yet they are paying a variety of other charges, such as value-added taxes, import taxes and market stall fees. 'There has been, for a very long time, a lot of focus on getting onto the tax registry the vast majority of the informal sector, thinking that they were a gold mine,' Occhiali says, 'rather than pursuing the smaller number of well-off individuals within a country who are often evading a significant amount of their tax liability.' As a spectrum, informality can encompass both unregistered vegetable sellers and high-earning lawyers who don't declare all their income. It would be more productive to focus on the latter, he argues. The good news is that it shouldn't be logistically challenging to properly gather property tax and the income tax of high earners. Technology and data collection are improving in ways that can ease this, such as GIS-based assessments of building materials and structure sizes, which can be used to tax higher-value properties more. In Sierra Leone, Occhiali says, the size of the property register doubled with improved data collection. The bad news is that political will can be hard to amass. 'Political pressure plays an important role in this, arguably more than technical reasons,' Occhiali believes. Many politically connected people are reluctant to declare their own taxes or to target high earners, which has contributed to the current situation where wealthy Africans pay less in tax than the average. Progress can sometimes feel slow, but it's going in the right direction, according to Occhiali. In Uganda, a decade ago, only one of the 71 top government officials had ever paid individual income tax. And fewer than 30% of top lawyers were paying it. Since then, with a dedicated unit, the Uganda Revenue Authority has collected a significant amount of tax from rich people. So inequality within a country's tax system can be addressed. But it intersects with inequality in the global tax system. 'The reason why we pay so much in terms of interest,' Kiiza argues, 'is because our powers to negotiate fair loans and fairer terms of repayments are constrained at the global level, because of our poor representation or under-representation on the IMF boards and the key decision-making bodies.' These aspects are expected to be discussed at the Financing for Development conference that begins at the end of June. But countries including the U.S., where the IMF and World Bank are based, are blocking potential reforms. The current system is evidently stacked against Africa. According to the NGOs Christian Aid, Bond, and the Center for Economic and Social Rights, all of Africa holds only 4.7% of voting shares at the IMF and World Bank, slightly more than the U.K. (at 4.03%) and substantially less than the U.S. (at 16.5%). Unfairness within and between countries is linked, Kiiza stresses. 'Our governments are under capture, just like we are also under capture by these governments.'

Scientific American

5 days ago

• Scientific American

Flesh-Eating 'Screwworm' Parasites Are Headed to the U.S.

Officials in nine countries are trying to get a handle on the New World screwworm, a fly whose larvae eat the living flesh of livestock. The pest is marching northward at an alarming rate and has now moved some 1,400 miles from southern Panama to southern Mexico in about two years. Screwworms are disastrous for ranchers, whose cattle can become infected when the flies lay eggs in cuts or wounds, after which their resulting larvae burrow, or screw, into that flesh. The northernmost sighting is currently about 700 miles south of the U.S. border. Since the insect breached biological containment in Panama's province of Darién in 2023, it has moved through Central America and is now found as far north as the Mexican state of Oaxaca. Thousands of animals have been infected, and officials have reported dozens of human cases in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Mexico this year. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. As the fly spreads northward from the narrow Darién Gap in Panama and up the funnel of Central America, it becomes harder to control. Agricultural departments suppress fly populations by releasing millions of sterile male flies per week into the environment throughout Central America. These males are raised in a facility in Panama jointly run by that country's agricultural department and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Because female screwworms mate only once in their lifetime, this population of infertile males reduces the size of the next generation of flies. Consistent application of this sterile insect technique eradicated the screwworm from the U.S. in 1966 and from regions north of the Darién Gap in 2006. That invisible wall holding the screwworm back has crumbled, however. 'I don't know how it got away so quickly,' says Maxwell Scott, an entomologist at North Carolina State University, who studies genetic methods to control populations of the fly. 'There had to be some movement of infested livestock, particularly through the middle [of Central America].... It just moved too fast,' Scott says about the swift speed of the screwworm spread. On their own, the flies can usually fly no more than about 12 miles in their monthlong lifetime, says Sonja Swiger, an entomologist at Texas A&M University. But the screwworm larvae can travel great distances while developing inside (and gnawing on the flesh of) their hosts. A new generation reaches sexual maturity every week to two weeks, and females can lay up to 2,800 eggs over the course of their lifespan, according to the California Department of Food & Agriculture. Most people aren't at risk of screwworm infections, which are rare compared with those in livestock. But cases have appeared in Central America since the breach of the Darién Gap. Nicaragua first detected the parasite in livestock in March 2024; by February 2025, health officials there confirmed 30 human cases. Costa Rica saw 42 confirmed cases between January and May 2025 and at least two deaths, according to the country's health ministry. Honduras has reported 40 human cases and three deaths, according to the public health network EpiCore, while Guatemala reported its first human case in May. The Mexican Ministry of Health has confirmed eight human cases. In humans, infection with fly larvae is known as myiasis. Those who are most at risk for screwworm myiasis are people who work closely with livestock or who sleep outdoors. Treatment involves removing the larvae, sometimes with surgery. Screwworms haven't made it back into the U.S. yet. How quickly this might happen depends on whether agricultural officials can hold the line in Mexico or push the fly southward. On May 27 U.S. Department of Agriculture officials announced $21 million in funding to retrofit a fruit fly production plant in Metapa, Mexico, to produce sterile screwworm flies. When operational, the plant will churn out between 60 million and 100 million additional flies a week to help suppress the breeding population in Mexico. While the sterile insect technique is likely to remain the key tool in the arsenal against screwworms for years to come, new genetic methods of insect control could eventually come to bear against the problem. In May ethicists and entomologists, including Scott, wrote in a paper in Science that the screwworm is a good candidate for complete elimination with gene drive technology, which involves genetic engineering to ensure that a deadly mutation will be included in an animal's sperm and egg cells and thus will be passed on to the next generation. The loss of screwworms does not seem to substantially affect the ecosystem, the researchers wrote, and death by the insect is painful and slow. 'The extent of the public health threat posed by screwworm is not certain, but any flesh-eating insect that caused occasional human mortality in the Global North would almost certainly be marked for suppression if not eradication,' the researchers wrote. Thus far, these genetic techniques have largely been explored to target malaria-carrying mosquitoes, though scientists at the Pasteur Institute of Montevideo in Uruguay are now working to develop a gene drive strain for the screwworm, Scott says. It will take time to make progress, but if the researchers succeed, the resulting mutant could spell the end of the screwworm not just in North and Central America but in South America, too. 'This is a very rapidly developing field,' Scott says.