Texas Screwworm Quarantine Returns to the Hill Country: November 10 Orders Create Infested Zones 31 and 32 in Parts of Bandera, Medina, Crockett, Irion and Reagan Counties

What Changed, and When

The instrument in both cases 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 9, 2026 — two detections, 200 miles apart. The first order recites that on that date New World screwworm was detected in a horse in Bandera County. The second recites that on the same date it was detected in a bovine in Reagan County. Texas Public Radio reported both animals among the newest confirmations in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s November 9 update, describing the Bandera horse as northwest of San Antonio.

November 10, 2026 — Infested Zone 31. The first order signed that day designates areas of Bandera and Medina Counties as Infested Zone 31.

November 10, 2026 — Infested Zone 32. The second order signed that day designates areas of Crockett, Irion and Reagan Counties as Infested Zone 32. Crockett County was already carrying restrictions under earlier orders; Irion and Reagan are new to this outbreak.

Why Zone 31 is the one to notice. Bandera and Medina are not new counties here. An order signed June 24, 2026 covered Bandera, Medina and Uvalde Counties after a detection in a cow in Medina County, and a release order signed September 16, 2026 lifted it. Fifty-five days later the restrictions are back. Every other zone in this outbreak has moved in one direction for a given area — established, modified, then eventually released. Zone 31 is the first instance of the cycle closing and reopening, and that changes what an operator in a released county can safely assume about a release being the end of it.

Where the lines now sit. Bandera and Medina are Hill Country counties northwest and west of San Antonio, in the country around Bandera, Hondo, Devine and Castroville. Medina County adjoins Bexar County, which puts a screwworm quarantine boundary one county from the San Antonio metropolitan area — closer to a major Texas population center than this outbreak’s zones have been. Irion and Reagan sit in the Concho Valley and Permian Basin country around Mertzon and Big Lake, west and northwest of San Angelo.

The rest of the week. The Commission also signed a modified order for Terrell and Val Verde Counties on November 9 and a third modified order for El Paso and Hudspeth Counties on November 8. Four orders in three days.

What the orders require. The operative language is the language the Commission has used across this outbreak, and it is identical in both new orders. Warm-blooded animals located within the zone “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” before removal from the zone. And each 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 11, 2026, the Commission’s New World screwworm notice lists movement restrictions in parts of 25 Texas counties: Bandera, Brewster, Crockett, Culberson, Edwards, El Paso, Fisher, Hudspeth, Irion, Jeff Davis, Jim Hogg, Medina, Mitchell, Nolan, Pecos, Presidio, Reagan, Reeves, Schleicher, Scurry, Starr, Sutton, Terrell, Val Verde and Zapata. Three days earlier that notice listed 21.

Two features of the list matter more than the number. First, the restriction is geographic, not county-wide: the orders designate 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, barn, arena or address falls inside a designated area is answered by the zone map and the order text, not by the county name. Second, as Zone 31 now shows, the list moves in both directions and can reverse. The Commission issues modified-and-release orders that retire areas as zones are cleared, 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 24 Texas counties and at 71 premises with at least one detection in the 2026 outbreak, up from 22 counties and 66 premises four days earlier. Texas Public Radio, reporting the USDA’s November 9 figures, put the national count at 126 confirmed animal infestations since June, up from 79 on November 1, with 63 still active. 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, and the mix in the Hill Country is different from the mix out west. In Bandera and Medina that means cow-calf operators; sheep and goat producers; dairies; horse owners, boarding and training barns, trail-ride and outfitting operations, ropings and barrel racings; exotic-game and hunting ranches; auction markets and order buyers; livestock haulers; veterinarians and certified inspectors; landowners under grazing and hunting leases; and pet owners, because the orders say warm-blooded animals rather than livestock. In Irion and Reagan it means cow-calf and stocker operations, sheep and goat producers, feedyards, haulers and hunting leases in the middle of fall shipping and hunting season.

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. Each 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.
• A release does not rule out a second order. Zone 31 covers ground that was released on September 16 and is restricted again as of November 10. An operation that unwound its quarantine paperwork, its permit routine and its inspection relationships after a release is starting that work over, and any contract or lease written on the assumption that the county was clear was written against a fact that has changed.
• Compliance runs through a permit. Each 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 boarding or training agreement, a feeding or grazing agreement, a hauling tender, an auction consignment, a show, roping or hunt 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, equine, 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.

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. The Commission also states that New World screwworm is not contagious and does not spread directly from animal to animal.

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 31 or Zone 32. The county name is not the answer; the order text and the Commission’s zone map are.
• What the current order for a zone says, as opposed to the one it replaced. Several zones in this outbreak have been modified two and three times in a matter of weeks, and a superseded order is not the operative document.
• What a prior release does and does not carry forward for an operation in Bandera or Medina County that was released in September and is restricted again now.
• How authorization, inspection and a movement certificate are obtained for a planned movement, and how far ahead of a sale, a haul, a boarding move 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, a boarding agreement or a 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 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

Neither order has an expiration date. Each runs “until the quarantine is released by the Commission,” so there is no date on the calendar to wait for, and the Bandera and Medina history shows that a release is not necessarily permanent either. The real deadlines are the ones already inside the operation — a sale date, a haul, a boarding contract, a lease term, a loan covenant, an insurance notice provision, a show, roping 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, with suspected wildlife cases going to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. 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 31, Bandera and Medina Counties, Texas Animal Health Commission, signed November 10, 2026 by Lewis R. Dinges, D.V.M. — the new zone, the November 9 detection in a horse in Bandera County, the movement prohibition, the inspection and certificate requirement, the statutory authority, and the penalty language (primary document).
2. Executive Director Order — New World Screwworm Infested Zone 32, Crockett, Irion and Reagan Counties, Texas Animal Health Commission, signed November 10, 2026 by Lewis R. Dinges, D.V.M. — the new zone, the November 9 detection in a bovine in Reagan County, and the same movement, inspection, authority and penalty provisions (primary document).
3. Release Executive Director Order — Bandera, Medina and Uvalde Counties, Texas Animal Health Commission, signed September 16, 2026 — the release that lifted the earlier Bandera and Medina restrictions, 55 days before Infested Zone 31 reimposed them (primary document).
4. New World Screwworms, Texas Animal Health Commission — the current notice listing movement restrictions in parts of 25 counties as of November 11, 2026, the full list of current and released-area orders, the zone map, the inspection and movement-certificate process, the certified inspector program, the 24-county and 71-premises figures, the 24-hour reporting expectation and the reporting contacts, the June 3, 2026 index case in Zavala County, and the notes that the parasite is not contagious and not a food-safety issue (primary source).
5. New World screwworm cases surge nearly 60% in eight days, with new detection in Bandera County, Texas Public Radio via KEDT, November 9, 2026 — independent reporting of the USDA’s November 9 update, the horse in Bandera County northwest of San Antonio and the cattle in Reagan County, the national count of 126 confirmed infestations since June with 63 active, up from 79 on November 1, and the 21-county restriction list as it stood that day.
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 orders cite, including the Commission’s quarantine authority and its enforcement and administrative-penalty provisions.
8. Texas Screwworm Quarantine Jumps to the Rolling Plains, this site, November 7, 2026 — earlier coverage of this outbreak, when the notice listed 21 counties and the newest zone was Zone 30 in Fisher, Mitchell, Nolan and Scurry Counties.