Texas Screwworm Quarantine Zones Expand Again: A November 1 Order Creates a New Infested Zone, and Parts of 16 West Texas Counties Now Restrict Animal Movement

What Changed, and When

The instrument here is not a statute and not a court ruling. It is an Executive Director Order signed by Lewis R. Dinges, D.V.M., Executive Director of the Texas Animal Health Commission. Each order designates a mapped area as a New World Screwworm Infested Zone, takes effect immediately, and “will remain in effect until the quarantine is released by the Commission.” Four of them issued in three days.

October 30, 2026 — two detections, and one of them is a different kind of fact. New World screwworm was confirmed in a bovine in Hudspeth County. Separately, the U.S. Department of Agriculture identified trapped wild screwworm flies — described in the orders as fertile — in Pecos County and in Hudspeth County. A fertile wild fly is not the same finding as an infested animal, and the Commission treated it as a reason to redraw two existing zones the next day.

October 31, 2026 — three orders. The Commission created Infested Zone 27 across areas of Culberson and Hudspeth Counties, citing the Hudspeth bovine detection. It issued a modified order replacing its October 21 order and redesignating the area as Infested Zone 23.A across Brewster, Jeff Davis, Pecos and Reeves Counties, citing the Pecos County fly. And it issued a second modified order replacing its October 28 order with Infested Zone 25.B across El Paso and Hudspeth Counties, citing the Hudspeth fly alongside earlier detections in bovines in Hudspeth County on October 23 and in a dog in El Paso County on October 27.

October 31, 2026 — a detection in a chicken. The parasite was confirmed in a chicken in Presidio County. Screwworm is usually discussed as a cattle problem; the host list in these orders is broader than that, and so is the restriction.

November 1, 2026 — Infested Zone 28. The order signed that day designates areas of Presidio and Jeff Davis Counties as Infested Zone 28, citing the Presidio chicken. It is the most recent order on the Commission’s list as of this writing.

What the orders require. The operative language is consistent across all four. Warm-blooded animals inside a zone “may not be moved outside of the zone without prior authorization from the Commission.” An animal that is authorized to leave must be inspected, treated as the Commission requires, and issued a permit or movement certificate by a Commission representative. Hides, carcasses and parts of any animal capable of hosting the parasite must be inspected and treated as directed before they leave the zone. And each order carries the same sentence: “Unauthorized movement is prohibited and subject to administrative penalties and/or criminal prosecution.” The authority cited is Chapters 161 through 168 of the Texas Agriculture Code and Title 4, Part 2, Chapters 31 through 60 of the Texas Administrative Code, including Sections 37.1 and 58.2.

Who in Texas This Reaches

As of November 2, 2026, the Commission’s New World screwworm notice lists movement restrictions in parts of 16 Texas counties: Brewster, Crockett, Culberson, Edwards, El Paso, Hudspeth, Jeff Davis, Pecos, Presidio, Reeves, Schleicher, Starr, Sutton, Terrell, Val Verde and Zapata.

Two features of that list matter more than the number. First, the restriction is geographic, not county-wide: every order and the notice itself say “parts of” or name designated areas, so a county on the list can contain land inside a zone and land outside one. Whether a particular pasture, pen or address falls inside a designated area is a question answered by the zone map and the order text, not by the county name. Second, the list moves. On October 31, KBTX reported restrictions across 14 counties; the Commission’s own notice today lists 16, the difference being the orders signed later that afternoon and the following day. Anyone relying on a county list more than a day or two old is working from a stale document.

The list runs in both directions. The Commission also publishes modified-and-release orders that retire areas as zones are cleared — most recently on October 23, 2026 for areas of Crockett, Pecos and Terrell Counties, and on October 13, 2026 for areas of Edwards, Schleicher, Sutton and Val Verde Counties. Because release happens area by area rather than county by county, a county can appear on both the current-order list and the released-area list at the same time.

On scale, the Commission reports that the 2026 outbreak has produced confirmed detections in 20 Texas counties and at 55 premises with at least one detection. The first Texas detection was confirmed on June 3, 2026, in a calf in Zavala County; the Commission says that animal recovered and that the individual case is now inactive. The United States last eradicated New World screwworm in 1966, and federal and state responders are releasing sterile male flies in affected areas under the sterile insect technique. The USDA’s current-status page, last updated October 29, 2026, is the federal side of the same response.

The people this reaches are not only ranchers. A short list of who sits inside these lines: cow-calf and stocker operators; sheep and goat producers; dairies; feedyards and backgrounders; livestock haulers and commercial carriers; livestock auction markets and order buyers; horse owners, trainers and rodeo and show competitors; hunting and exotic-game operations; veterinarians and the newly created pool of certified inspectors; landowners under grazing and hunting leases; and pet owners, because the orders say warm-blooded animals, not livestock.

What This Changes Legally

Five things are worth holding apart.

• This is an agency order, with agency enforcement behind it. The orders do not ask; they state a prohibition and attach consequences. Each one says unauthorized movement is subject to administrative penalties and/or criminal prosecution. The amount of any administrative penalty and the grade of any criminal charge are set by the Agriculture Code and the Commission’s rules rather than by the order, which is one reason the exposure is hard to size from the order alone.
• Compliance runs through a permit, not through good intentions. The order makes lawful movement conditional on a Commission authorization plus an inspection, required treatment, and a permit or movement certificate. The paper is the defense. Operations that keep inspection requests, certificates, treatment records and official animal identification together are in a different position from operations that do not.
• Contracts do not pause because a zone appeared. A sale contract, a delivery date, a feeding or grazing agreement, a hauling tender, an auction consignment or a breeding commitment may become impossible or late to perform because an order landed on top of it. Whether a force majeure, impossibility, impracticability or government-act clause reaches a state quarantine order is a question of what the particular contract says.
• Insurance and loss documentation are their own track. Livestock, business-interruption, cargo and farm policies treat disease, quarantine and government-ordered restrictions in widely varying ways, and some exclude them. The time to read a policy’s disease and quarantine wording is while the loss is being documented.
• Zones sit on top of land, and land has more than one party. Grazing and hunting leases, easements, livestock-handling arrangements and neighbor disputes over strays, fences and treatment access all run through a zone boundary that none of the parties drew.

One clarification, because it travels: this is an animal-health order, not a food-safety recall. The Commission notes that the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service is responsible for the commercial meat, poultry and egg supply, that infestation would be identified during inspection, and that adulterated product from an affected animal would not be allowed into commerce.

What Kind of Option Might Apply

Nothing on this page is advice about any individual operation. These are the kinds of questions attorneys describe working through when a state quarantine order reaches a client:

• Whether a specific location is actually inside a designated area. The county name is not the answer; the order and the zone map are.
• What the current order for that zone says, as opposed to the one it replaced. Zone 23 became 23.A and Zone 25.A became 25.B within ten days, and a superseded order is not the operative document.
• How an authorization, inspection and movement certificate are obtained for a planned movement, and how far ahead of a sale or a haul that has to start.
• What happens after an alleged unauthorized movement. Administrative penalty proceedings and criminal referrals are different tracks with different timelines, and a person who has been contacted by an investigator has choices to make about how to respond.
• Which contract clauses the order touches, and what notice those clauses require from whoever is going to invoke them.
• What a policy covers. Disease, quarantine and government-action language varies between policies, and an insurer’s first position is not always its last.
• How a loss is documented while it is happening — animal counts and identification, treatment and inspection records, cancelled contracts, delayed shipments, feed and labor costs, and dated correspondence.
• Whether a lease or neighbor arrangement needs to be revisited now that movement off the property requires permission.

Many people in these counties are running an operation and a compliance problem at the same time, with the rules changing weekly. That is an ordinary reason to talk to a lawyer, and talking to one costs nothing through this service.

Why Acting Quickly Can Matter

These orders have no expiration date. Each one runs “until the quarantine is released by the Commission,” so there is no date on the calendar to wait for, and the practical deadlines are the ones already in the operation: a sale date, a haul, a lease term, a loan covenant, an insurance notice provision, a show entry.

Two timing facts are worth stating plainly. The Commission says New World screwworm is reportable and should be reported within 24 hours of suspicion, through a Commission region office or the veterinarian on call. And movement out of a zone requires an inspection to be arranged in advance, which means the lead time is real: an inspection, the required treatment and a certificate all have to happen before the trailer leaves.

Records age faster than people expect. Treatment dates, inspection requests, which animals moved when and under which certificate, and what a buyer was told on which day are all easy to establish this week and much harder to establish a year from now, whether the question turns out to be an administrative penalty, a contract dispute or an insurance claim. It is best to have a lawyer look at the order, the contracts and the policy while the documents are current and the zone is still in force. If a lawyer in our network offers an initial consultation, it is free.

Sources

1. Executive Director Order — New World Screwworm Infested Zone 28, Presidio and Jeff Davis Counties, Texas Animal Health Commission, signed November 1, 2026 — the new zone, the October 31 detection in a chicken in Presidio County, the movement prohibition, the inspection and certificate requirement, and the penalty language (primary document).
2. Executive Director Order — Infested Zone 27, Culberson and Hudspeth Counties, Texas Animal Health Commission, October 31, 2026 — the October 30 bovine detection in Hudspeth County (primary document).
3. Modified Executive Director Order — Infested Zone 23.A, Brewster, Jeff Davis, Pecos and Reeves Counties, Texas Animal Health Commission, October 31, 2026 — the trapped fertile wild fly identified by USDA in Pecos County on October 30, and the replacement of the October 21, 2026 order (primary document).
4. Second Modified Executive Director Order — Infested Zone 25.B, El Paso and Hudspeth Counties, Texas Animal Health Commission, October 31, 2026 — the Hudspeth County fly, the October 23 bovine and October 27 canine detections, and the replacement of the October 28, 2026 order (primary document).
5. New World Screwworms, Texas Animal Health Commission — the current notice listing movement restrictions in parts of 16 counties as of November 2, 2026, the full list of current and released-area orders, the zone map, the inspection and movement-certificate process, the certified inspector program, the 20-county and 55-premises figures, the June 3, 2026 index case in Zavala County, and the FSIS note on the commercial meat supply (primary source).
6. Texas restricts animal movement across 14 counties to fight parasitic screwworm outbreak, KBTX, October 31, 2026 — independent reporting on the restriction regime and the 14-county list as it stood that afternoon.
7. Current Status of New World Screwworm, USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, last updated October 29, 2026 — the federal response, the sterile insect technique and the national picture (primary source).
8. Texas Agriculture Code, Chapter 161 — General Disease and Pest Control — the chapter the orders cite, including the Commission’s quarantine authority and its enforcement and administrative-penalty provisions.
9. Texas Landowners and the New 765-kV Transmission Lines, this site, August 29, 2026 — earlier coverage of a state agency decision landing on Texas landowners.