ET: ROMA, Texas—Illegal immigrants and drug traffickers aren’t the only incursions that border ranchers are battling in southeast Texas.
A tiny interloper has brought the area’s cattle industry to its knees. It’s called the fever tick.
Fever ticks can carry a parasite that causes babesiosis, commonly known as cattle fever, which can decimate a herd.
The parasite attacks and destroys the animals’ red blood cells, causing acute anemia, high fever, and enlargement of the spleen and liver—ultimately killing 90 percent of a herd that hasn’t been previously exposed to the parasite, according to the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC).
Cattle rancher Richard Guerra’s 9,000 acres have stood idle for four years, with not a cow in sight and feeder pens overrun by weeds. After being quarantined 22 times in the past 15 years, it has become cost-prohibitive for him to run cattle. At full capacity, he can run 1,000 cattle; now, he stays afloat by leasing his land during hunting season.
Guerra’s ranch sits about a mile north of the U.S.–Mexico border, near Rio Grande City, Texas. The Rio Grande is the international boundary, and no fencing exists in the area. The border is ground zero for fever tick infestations, largely because of cattle and deer crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico and infecting U.S. herds.
“Right now, one of our biggest problems, even though we do have some human trafficking, is the problem with fever tick. Fever tick comes from Mexico. Mexico does nothing to control it,” Guerra said on March 22. “Look at our pens, they’re empty. We got feeder pens right there. We can handle as much as 500 head of steer in there at one time. But right now, they’re empty.” more
Blood sucking ticks have either 2 or 6 legs.
Time to quit mincing words. The demonrats have WEAPONIZED the illegals thus making it an INVASION and the demonrat party TREASONISTS.