Texas Screwworm Quarantine Jumps to the Rolling Plains: A November 5 Order Creates Infested Zone 30 Across Parts of Fisher, Mitchell, Nolan and Scurry Counties

What Changed, and When

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

November 4, 2026 — a detection in Mitchell County. The order recites that on that date New World screwworm was detected in a bovine in Mitchell County. KCBD reported the case as being southeast of Snyder.

November 5, 2026 — Infested Zone 30. The order signed that day designates areas of Fisher, Mitchell, Nolan and Scurry Counties as Infested Zone 30. KTXS reported that the Commission’s map also shows an adjacent surveillance zone surrounding the infested area, which is a different designation from the infested zone itself.

Why the geography is the story. Every previously created zone sat in the Big Bend region or along the Rio Grande — Brewster, Presidio, Jeff Davis, Pecos, Culberson, Hudspeth, El Paso, Val Verde, Terrell, Starr, Zapata, Jim Hogg. Fisher, Mitchell, Nolan and Scurry are in the Rolling Plains of West Central Texas, in the country around Roby, Sweetwater, Colorado City and Snyder, several hundred miles northeast of that cluster. For an operator in the Big Country who has been reading about this outbreak as a border-county problem, the order is the point at which it stopped being one.

November 4, 2026 — and a new host species. A separate second modified order replaced the Commission’s October 31 order and redesignated areas of Brewster, Jeff Davis, Pecos and Reeves Counties as Infested Zone 23.B, after New World screwworm was detected in an elk in Jeff Davis County on November 4, 2026. That zone has now been redrawn three times in about two weeks: the October 21 order created Zone 23 after a bovine detection in Jeff Davis County on October 20; the October 31 order created Zone 23.A after the U.S. Department of Agriculture identified a trapped fertile wild screwworm fly in Pecos County on October 30; the November 4 order created 23.B. Earlier zones in this outbreak have cited detections in a calf, a chicken and a dog. The host list in these orders is wider than cattle, and so is the restriction.

The rest of the week. The Commission also signed a modified order for Culberson and Hudspeth Counties and a second modified order for Jim Hogg, Starr and Zapata Counties on November 4, a modified order for Pecos County on November 3, and a modified order for El Paso County on November 2. Six orders in four days.

What the order requires. The operative language is the same language the Commission has used across this outbreak. Warm-blooded animals located within Infested Zone 30 “may not be moved outside of the zone without prior authorization from the Commission.” To move one out, “the animal must be inspected and treated as required by the Commission and issued a permit or certificate for movement by a Commission representative.” Hides, carcasses and parts of any animal capable of serving as a host “must be inspected and undergo any treatment deemed necessary by a Commission representative prior to removal.” And the order carries the sentence that gives it teeth: “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 7, 2026, the Commission’s New World screwworm notice lists movement restrictions in parts of 21 Texas counties: Brewster, Crockett, Culberson, Edwards, El Paso, Fisher, Hudspeth, Jeff Davis, Jim Hogg, Mitchell, Nolan, Pecos, Presidio, Reeves, Schleicher, Scurry, Starr, Sutton, Terrell, Val Verde and Zapata. Five days earlier that notice listed 16.

Two features of the list matter more than the number. First, the restriction is geographic, not county-wide: the order designates areas, and the notice says “parts of,” so a listed county can hold land inside a zone and land outside one. Whether a particular pasture, pen, trap or address falls inside a designated area is answered by the zone map and the order text, not by the county name. Second, the list moves in both directions. The Commission also issues modified-and-release orders that retire areas as zones are cleared, most recently on October 23 and October 13, 2026, and because release happens area by area rather than county by county, a county can sit on the current-order list and the released-area list at the same time.

On scale, the Commission reports confirmed detections in 22 Texas counties and at 66 premises with at least one detection in the 2026 outbreak, up from 20 counties and 55 premises five days earlier. The first Texas detection was confirmed on June 3, 2026, in a calf in Zavala County; the Commission says that animal recovered and 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 people inside these lines are not only ranchers. In the four new counties that means cow-calf and stocker operators; sheep and goat producers; dairies; feedyards and backgrounders; livestock haulers and commercial carriers; auction markets and order buyers; horse owners, trainers and rodeo and show competitors; hunting and exotic-game operations, including elk and deer; veterinarians and certified inspectors; landowners under grazing and hunting leases; and pet owners, because the order says warm-blooded animals rather than livestock. The timing lands in the middle of fall shipping and hunting season in that part of the state.

What This Changes Legally

Five things are worth holding apart.

• This is an agency order, with agency enforcement behind it. It states a prohibition and attaches consequences. The order 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 come from the Agriculture Code and the Commission’s rules rather than from the order, which is one reason the exposure is hard to size from the order alone.
• Compliance runs through a permit. The order makes lawful movement conditional on prior Commission authorization plus an inspection, required treatment, and a permit or movement certificate. The paper is the defense. An operation that keeps inspection requests, certificates, treatment records and official animal identification together sits in a different position from one that does 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, a show entry or a breeding commitment can 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 disputes with neighbors over strays, fences and treatment access all run through a 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 Infested Zone 30. The county name is not the answer; the order and the zone map are, and the adjacent surveillance zone KTXS described is a separate designation.
• What the current order for a zone says, as opposed to the one it replaced. Zone 23 became 23.A and then 23.B inside two weeks, and a superseded order is not the operative document.
• How authorization, inspection and a movement certificate are obtained for a planned movement, and how far ahead of a sale, a haul or a show entry that has to start.
• What happens after an alleged unauthorized movement. Administrative penalty proceedings and criminal referrals are different tracks with different timelines, and someone 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 a neighbor arrangement needs to be revisited now that movement off the property requires permission.

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

Why Acting Quickly Can Matter

This order has no expiration date. It runs “until the quarantine is released by the Commission,” so there is no date on the calendar to wait for. There is, however, a reported floor on how long it lasts: KCBD reported that under USDA guidance, movement restrictions and surveillance within an infested zone stay active for a minimum of three months after the final positive case. On that reporting, the practical horizon for the Rolling Plains zone runs into 2027 at the earliest, and the real deadlines are the ones already inside the operation — a sale date, a haul, a lease term, a loan covenant, an insurance notice provision, a show or hunt date.

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, so the lead time is real: authorization, inspection, the required treatment and a certificate all come 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 30, Fisher, Mitchell, Nolan and Scurry Counties, Texas Animal Health Commission, signed November 5, 2026 by Lewis R. Dinges, D.V.M. — the new zone, the November 4 detection in a bovine in Mitchell County, the movement prohibition, the inspection and certificate requirement, the statutory authority, and the penalty language (primary document).
2. Second Modified Executive Director Order — Infested Zone 23.B, Brewster, Jeff Davis, Pecos and Reeves Counties, Texas Animal Health Commission, signed November 4, 2026 — the November 4 detection in an elk in Jeff Davis County, the October 20 bovine detection behind Zone 23, the October 30 trapped fertile wild fly in Pecos County behind Zone 23.A, and the replacement of the October 31, 2026 order (primary document).
3. New World Screwworms, Texas Animal Health Commission — the current notice listing movement restrictions in parts of 21 counties as of November 7, 2026, the full list of current and released-area orders, the zone map, the inspection and movement-certificate process, the certified inspector program, the 22-county and 66-premises figures, the 24-hour reporting expectation and the veterinarian-on-call contact, the June 3, 2026 index case in Zavala County, and the FSIS note on the commercial meat supply (primary source).
4. New World screwworm zone established in four West Texas counties, KTXS, November 6, 2026 — independent reporting that the zone was established November 5 after the Mitchell County detection, that it covers portions of Fisher, Mitchell, Nolan and Scurry Counties, and that the Commission map shows an adjacent surveillance zone.
5. Scurry County included in New World Screwworm infested zone by Texas Animal Health Commission, KCBD, November 7, 2026 — independent reporting locating the Mitchell County case southeast of Snyder and reporting that, under USDA guidance, movement restrictions and surveillance within the infested zone stay active for a minimum of three months after the final positive case.
6. Current Status of New World Screwworm, USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service — the federal response, the sterile insect technique and the national picture (primary source).
7. Texas Agriculture Code, Chapter 161 — General Disease and Pest Control — the chapter the order cites, including the Commission’s quarantine authority and its enforcement and administrative-penalty provisions.
8. Texas Screwworm Quarantine Zones Expand Again, this site, November 2, 2026 — earlier coverage of this outbreak, when the notice listed 16 counties and the newest zone was Zone 28 in Presidio and Jeff Davis Counties.