Val Verde County posts screwworm map with quarantine rules and movement limits

Val Verde County’s new screwworm map turns a growing quarantine into a practical checklist for anyone hauling animals, planning a hunt or moving pets across the county. The interactive map, posted June 11, shows a turquoise area and a yellow infected zone, and the yellow area carries the strongest restrictions.

If a property falls inside that yellow zone, warm-blooded animals cannot move out without prior authorization from the Texas Animal Health Commission. Any movement also must include an inspection and an official movement certificate that identifies the animals being moved and documents the product used for prevention or treatment. For a rancher outside Del Rio loading calves, or a family transporting livestock or horses through the county, the map is designed to show whether the trip crosses into a restricted area before the trailer ever pulls out.

The county’s guidance also lays out what to do when the goal is not moving animals but keeping them safe. Residents are told to watch closely for wounds, wounds with maggots and other clinical signs, keep wounds covered and treated quickly, avoid creating unnecessary wounds and report suspicions immediately. Suspicious animals should not be moved. The map also points to response actions that can take place inside the zone, including sterile fly dispersal, active surveillance and checkpoints for vehicles transporting animals.

The quarantine widened after New World screwworm was confirmed in a calf in Zavala County on June 3. By June 12, the Texas Animal Health Commission said parts of 12 counties were under quarantine, including Val Verde, Uvalde, Webb, La Salle, Sutton, Tom Green, Kerr, Kimble, Gillespie, Edwards, Coke and Zavala. The commission says the current response applies to livestock, exotic livestock, fowl and exotic fowl, and remains in place until the quarantine is released.

Federal and state officials are treating the outbreak as a major livestock threat. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says its dashboard tracks confirmed animal cases and wild fly detections by county, state, species, confirmation date and status, and that active cases require wound treatment and management until wounds heal. USDA also says all southern ports of entry are closed to livestock trade and that it is dispersing 100 million sterile insects per week in Mexico and along the U.S.-Mexico border. The sterile insect technique was used to eradicate New World screwworm from the United States in 1966.

The broader pressure is already visible on the Texas side. The cattle industry generates about $41 billion a year, and nearly 28,000 cases had been detected in Mexico since November 2024. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller has said the state was not adequately prepared, while more than 8,000 traps have been deployed from Cameron County to Val Verde County since July 2025 and more than 53,000 suspicious flies have been collected. The county’s map gives local residents a direct way to see whether the rules touch their property, their route or their next move.