KERRVILLE, Texas (AP/KCRG) – A team from Iowa has been sent to Texas to help combat the spread of a pest that is threatening to devastate the U.S. cattle industry.

Three more cases of the New World screwworm have been confirmed, including one outside the main cluster in Texas, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Monday.

During a news conference, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said a team from the National Veterinary Services Lab in Ames has been sent to Texas to monitor for cases. The lab is a key facility for animal disease testing and has been conducting tests in Ames but Rollins said the team could be more efficient and test samples quicker by being on location in Texas.

The screwworm is actually a fly larva that eats living flesh instead of dead material. Females lay their eggs in open wounds of warm-blooded animals like cattle, but wildlife, pets and occasionally even humans can be infested. The government has a program to breed sterile male flies and drop swarms of them from planes to mate with wild females, which kept screwworm contained at the southern end of Panama for decades.

So far, there are five confirmed cases: three calves and a goat in Texas and a dog from neighboring Lea County, New Mexico. The dog, which the USDA initially reported as a Texas case, lives in New Mexico and was reclassified as the first in that state. The animal’s travel history is being investigated.

The first two screwworm cases were discovered last week in calves a few miles apart in south Texas. A case was announced Monday in a calf in La Salle County, southwest of San Antonio, and in a goat in Gillespie County, west of Austin.

Scientists expect new cases could pop up in the coming days and weeks, but it doesn’t mean screwworm is spreading rapidly, said Edward Burgess, a University of Florida entomologist who studies the fly.

“When that first case is seen, everyone is being vigilant and their eyes are on it more intensely,” Burgess said. “And when you are looking for something, you are more likely to see it.”

The USDA and the U.S. cattle industry have been racing to prevent an infestation since screwworm was detected in Mexico late in 2024. Screwworm was eliminated in the U.S. in the 1960s, and gets its name from the maggots’ habit of burrowing — or screwing — into a wound, according to the USDA.

So far, its reappearance hasn’t greatly affected beef prices, which are already near record levels because there are fewer cows in the U.S. Although the parasite attacks live cattle, it does not infest meat or fruit. There are also a dozen government-approved medications to treat livestock.

Canada temporarily stopped importing cattle, horses or other livestock from Texas on Friday. The parasites prefer humid areas where temperatures are at least 77 F (25 C), making them more of a summer problem up north.

Burgess said the long-term solution — breeding sterile male flies — is months away. Since wild female flies mate just once, if that encounter is with a sterile male, outbreaks can eventually be halted as the flies die out.

The USDA is working to both increase sterile fly production in plants outside the U.S. and build a massive fly factory in Texas.

The goal is to have enough sterile flies to stop the pests from returning in 2027 after the winter kills off most of them, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said at a news conference at the U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory in Kerrville, Texas. She said building the plants is a top government priority.

Scientists are also working on ways to sterilize only male flies to make the program even more effective.

Texas officials encouraged ranchers to keep a close eye on their herds and other wildlife and report anything suspicious to a hotline open 24 hours a day. They also established a website and map to post cases as they are reported.

“This is a highly treatable condition if you act on it immediately,” Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said.

However, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller — who lost the Republican primary to a candidate backed by Abbott — said the federal response will take too long and risks crippling the cattle industry.

Instead, he says a poison bait could eliminate the screwworm problem in a few months, even if USDA and other experts say the bait hasn’t been proven effective and could poison other flies, animals and even humans.

“What the hell is a good fly?” Miller said in an interview.

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Associated Press writer Scott McFetridge in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

WATERLOO – It was probably a bit more than two years ago when the hints, innuendo, gossip and speculation started to accumulate.  

In conversations with coaches or administrators or the otherwise well-connected within Iowa State athletics circles, any discussion about the not-too-distant future of Cyclone sports would take a sort of detour. 

‘You know,’ they’d say, ‘Jamie isn’t going to be here forever.’ 

Do tell, I’d ask.  

‘It wouldn’t shock me,’ they’d note, ‘if Jamie called it a career sooner than you’d think.’ 

Jamie being, of course, Jamie Pollard, Iowa State’s longest-tenured athletics director. He is, of course, still Iowa State’s athletic director, and he’s under contract to be so through 2030 after signing a five-year extension early in 2025. Which, given the gathering momentum of speculation about a potential impending retirement, surprised plenty of people plugged in to the Jacobson Athletic Building when it was announced. 

So the rumor mill, as it so often does, began spinning again. This time, with an explanation of why it was wrong the first time. 

Iowa State president Wendy Wintersteen, who would announce her own retirement three months after that Pollard extension, asked the athletic director to extend his record-setting tenure to keep continuity and stability on the university’s front porch while it underwent change at the top. 

Or so the story went. 

“I don’t know that I’d say that’s 100 percent accurate,” Pollard said last month when I presented him with that scenario at the Cyclone Tailgate Tour.  

“It’s close.” 

Whatever the exact machinations, Pollard will enter his 22^nd year guiding Iowa State athletics this fall, but, you know, he won’t be forever. 

“I’ve basically said if this was a game of soccer, we’d be in extra time,” Pollard, 61, told me. “Nobody knows how much time is left on the clock, including the player. 

“A big thing for (wife) Ellen and me, is there is a ‘next,’ and we want to physically and mentally be able to enjoy ‘next,’ but, at the same time, I want to make sure when that day comes, that we hand it off in as good a spot as can be.”  

Which is no small reason why that retirement many were expecting was postponed when Wintersteen told him her career was winding to its end. After being at a place for two decades, what’s a few more years? Especially if it helps keep that place you care deeply about better situated for the future. 

Eventually, though, that postponement will end. That future will arrive – without Pollard. 

“At some point and time that’s going to happen for all of us, right?” Pollard, who recently became a grandfather, said. “When’s the right time to do that? We’ll have to figure that out.  

“It’s a work in progress.” 

That work is complicated by the sheer volume of volatility collegiate sports are currently enduring. When the industry’s leaders become regulars at congressional testimony, it’s a pretty good sign that things are not going smoothly and orderly. And even more locally, Iowa State just had a head coaching change in football, axed its gymnastics program, began a women’s wrestling program, projects a future budget shortfall and has something like a $200 million development underway with CyTown. 

IOWA CITY, Iowa (KCRG) – Iowa City’s deer population is growing – with the latest data showing nearly 560 deer in just under five square miles.

On May 14, the city asked the state’s Natural Resources Commission for professional sharpshooting, but that request was denied.

The police department received 35 calls for deer collisions last year. According to the city’s 2026 drone survey, the population has risen 16% to about 116 deer per square mile.

Concern for driver safety is one of the reasons the city wants to bring the number down to a safer level of 25 deer per square mile.

City management’s perspective

Assistant city manager Kirk Lehmann said although an urban bow hunt is the long-term strategy for population management, the city is working towards a hard reset with the sharpshooting.

“We do believe the data suggests that some sort of targeted sharpshoot is going to be necessary and ultimately that will depend on approval by the Natural Resources Commission,” said Lehmann. “We look forward to continuing working with them and the DNR.”

He said the NRC wants to see more results from the city’s urban bow hunt program before signing off on it.

Participation in the urban bow hunt is growing, with only 3 deer harvested in 2020 and 62 deer by 22 hunters in 2025. Lehmann said that was a 40% increase from the past year.

“When it comes to urban bow hunts, that does allow hunters to get additional buck tags and so that’s a popular incentive,” he said.

Lehmann said the city is also working to increase outreach and the amount of land available for the hunt.

A professional sharpshoot would be paid for locally – and Lehmann said it was included in the fiscal year budget.

A resident’s perspective

Seeing deer is a near daily occurrence at George Rickey’s house on the east side of town – in sunshine, rain or snow.

“It’s a nice city, nice community, and I didn’t realize I was moving into a wildlife preserve!“ he said. ”Recently, it has really exploded.”

Although he enjoys seeing the deer, he points out the possibility of disease and the danger to drivers as concerns – as his friend has hit two deer in the past two years.

“I’d rather see them in my backyard and peacefully wandering around than in my windshield,” he said. “Because I’m a former EMT and I can tell you that those kind of accidents don’t end up really well.“

Rickey said he wouldn’t be a fan of a sharpshoot as he wants the management to be extra cautious and said a bow hunt would have more “control.”

In the meantime, Rickey said the deer are pretty friendly when he encounters them – recounting a recent time a neighbor was selling their house and five deer wandered through his backyard.

“I said, there’s a great selling point if you’re selling to a family that’s got kids… ‘Hey look, we’re going to move in right next door to a game preserve!’” he said, laughing.

Although he said he drives carefully on roads that deer frequent, he will continue to enjoy seeing them in the neighborhood.

“Well, they’re here, live with them. Just try to work it out where everybody can coexist,” he said.