Livestock insect research

A dedication ceremony in the hill country of Texas. Speaker 2: We broke ground on that in 2022, and it's taken four years to complete this project, and that's what we're celebrating. Speaker 1: Kim Lohmeier is the director of USDA's Agricultural Research Service investigating livestock Insects Research in Kerrville Texas. The state of the art facility continues eight decades of study on insect threats to livestock, including biting flies. Speaker 2: New world Screwworm. But we also work on cattle fever, ticks, and then other ticks as well, like Lone Star ticks and winter ticks. Any tick in general or abiding by in general, that impacts livestock and wildlife. Speaker 1: In addition to livestock and wildlife stakeholders. Speaker 2: Our other major stakeholder groups are our federal partners USDA Aphis, the Animal Plant Health Inspection Service. So we do the research that helps support the regulatory efforts that Aphis does in the field, in particular for New world screwworm and for cattle fever. Ahs has never stopped working on Screwworm. Our origins of the work. We did actually start back with Screwworm to lab. That was in Menard, Texas in the 1930s. Our lab that started here in Kerr County in the 40s was a consolidation of three other labs in the state of Texas that were all working on either screwworms or ticks. And so we've got a long history of trying to fight these pests, especially screwworm, but also ticks and other biting flies like horn flies and stable flies.