Texas Screwworm Quarantine Reaches the Coastal Bend and Returns to Where It Started: November 13 Orders Create Infested Zones 34, 35 and 36 in Parts of Brooks, Dimmit, Frio, Goliad, Jim Hogg, La Salle, Starr and Zavala Counties

What Changed, and When

The instrument in all three 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 12, 2026 — three detections, three regions. Each order recites a detection confirmed on that date. One records New World screwworm detected in a bovine in Jim Hogg County. One records it detected in a bovine in La Salle County. One records it detected in a horse in Goliad County. Three confirmations on one day, in three separate parts of South and Coastal Texas, is the densest single-day cluster of this outbreak so far, and it is why three orders were signed the next day instead of one.

November 13, 2026 — Infested Zone 34. The first order designates areas of Brooks, Jim Hogg and Starr Counties as Infested Zone 34. Jim Hogg and Starr were already carrying restrictions under earlier orders; Brooks County is new to this outbreak, which carries the quarantine line into the brush country north of the Rio Grande Valley, around Falfurrias.

November 13, 2026 — Infested Zone 35. The second order designates areas of Dimmit, Frio, La Salle and Zavala Counties as Infested Zone 35. All four are in the Winter Garden country southwest of San Antonio, around Carrizo Springs, Pearsall, Cotulla and Crystal City. Dimmit and Frio are new to this outbreak. La Salle and Zavala are not.

November 13, 2026 — Infested Zone 36. The third order designates areas of Goliad County as Infested Zone 36. Goliad sits in the Coastal Bend, between Victoria and Beeville, and this is the first screwworm movement restriction in that part of Texas and the furthest east a zone has reached in this outbreak. Every zone before it has sat along the border, in the Hill Country, in the Permian and Concho country, or on the Rolling Plains.

Why Zone 35 is the one to notice. It reaches the two counties where the Texas outbreak started, and both had already been let go. The first Texas detection in this outbreak was confirmed on June 3, 2026 in Zavala County, which became part of Infested Zone 01; a release order signed September 3, 2026 freed the Uvalde and Zavala County areas in Zone 01.B. That was 71 days before Zone 35 put Zavala back under restriction. La Salle County followed a detection on June 7, 2026 into Infested Zone 02, and the release order signed August 31, 2026 was the first eligible zone release of the outbreak — the Commission announced it as such. That was 74 days before Zone 35 restricted La Salle again. A release, on the record now in three separate counties, does not mean the restrictions cannot come back.

What the orders require. The operative language is the language the Commission has used across this outbreak, and it is identical in all three 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 14, 2026, the Commission’s New World screwworm notice lists movement restrictions in parts of 31 Texas counties: Bandera, Brewster, Brooks, Crockett, Culberson, Dimmit, Edwards, El Paso, Fisher, Frio, Goliad, Hudspeth, Irion, Jeff Davis, Jim Hogg, La Salle, Medina, Mitchell, Nolan, Pecos, Presidio, Reagan, Reeves, Schleicher, Scurry, Starr, Sutton, Terrell, Val Verde, Zapata and Zavala. Three days earlier that notice listed 25.

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, 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. Zavala and La Salle are on both today.

On scale, the Commission reports confirmed detections in 25 Texas counties and at 76 premises with at least one detection in the 2026 outbreak, up from 24 counties and 71 premises three days earlier. KAMR and KCIT in Amarillo reported on November 12 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture was reporting 128 confirmed cases across Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, and quoted the Commission’s Deputy Executive Director and Assistant State Veterinarian, T.R. Lansford, attributing the recent rise to the season: the fly is more active now that the hottest part of the year has passed, and “with the amount of moisture that we have seen in large parts of Texas” the conditions suit it. 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 differs across the three new zones. In the Winter Garden counties of Zone 35 and the brush country of Zone 34 that means cow-calf and stocker operations; sheep and goat producers; exotic-game, deer-breeding and hunting ranches in the middle of hunting season; horse owners and working ranch horses; auction markets and order buyers; livestock haulers running the Interstate 35 and U.S. 59 and 83 corridors; veterinarians and certified inspectors; landowners under grazing and hunting leases; oilfield-adjacent landowners with stock on the same ground; and pet owners, because the orders say warm-blooded animals rather than livestock. In Goliad County it means cow-calf operators, registered-cattle breeders, horse owners, boarding and training barns, roping and arena operations, haulers, hunting leases and county show and 4-H and FFA families heading into the winter show 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, and that is now a pattern rather than an exception. Bandera and Medina were released in September and restricted again on November 10. Zavala and La Salle were released on September 3 and August 31 and are restricted again as of November 13. 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; an infestation needs a wound and a wild fly.

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 34, 35 or 36. 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 Zavala or La Salle County that was freed in late summer 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, a hunt 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 hunting or grazing lease is affected when game, livestock or carcasses and parts cannot leave the property without inspection, and what the lease itself says about that.
• 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.

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

None of the three orders 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 Zavala and La Salle 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 hunt date, 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, 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. In the middle of deer season and fall shipping, in counties where hunting leases and cattle move on the same weekends, that lead time is the part most likely to be underestimated.

Records age faster than people expect. Treatment dates, inspection requests, which animals moved when and under which certificate, and what a buyer or a lessee 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 34, Brooks, Jim Hogg and Starr Counties, Texas Animal Health Commission, signed November 13, 2026 by Lewis R. Dinges, D.V.M. — the new zone, the November 12 detection in a bovine in Jim Hogg 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 35, Dimmit, Frio, La Salle and Zavala Counties, Texas Animal Health Commission, signed November 13, 2026 by Lewis R. Dinges, D.V.M. — the new zone, the November 12 detection in a bovine in La Salle County, and the same movement, inspection, authority and penalty provisions (primary document).
3. Executive Director Order — New World Screwworm Infested Zone 36, Goliad County, Texas Animal Health Commission, signed November 13, 2026 by Lewis R. Dinges, D.V.M. — the new zone, the November 12 detection in a horse in Goliad County, and the same movement, inspection, authority and penalty provisions (primary document).
4. Release Executive Director Order — Uvalde and Zavala Counties, Infested Zone 01.B, Texas Animal Health Commission, signed September 3, 2026 — the June 3, 2026 index detection in Zavala County and the release that lifted the Zone 01.B restrictions, 71 days before Infested Zone 35 reimposed them on Zavala County (primary document).
5. Release Executive Director Order — La Salle and Webb Counties, Infested Zone 02.A, Texas Animal Health Commission, signed August 31, 2026 — the June 7, 2026 detection in a bovine in La Salle County, the June 9, 2026 order that established Zone 02, and the release that lifted the Zone 02.A restrictions, 74 days before Infested Zone 35 reimposed them on La Salle County (primary document).
6. New World Screwworms, Texas Animal Health Commission — the current notice listing movement restrictions in parts of 31 counties as of November 14, 2026, the full list of current and released-area orders, the zone map, the inspection and movement-certificate process, the certified inspector program, the 25-county and 76-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).
7. 128 confirmed New World Screwworm cases across Southwestern U.S. states, KAMR and KCIT (Amarillo), November 12, 2026 — independent reporting of the USDA count of 128 confirmed cases across Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, and the Commission’s Deputy Executive Director and Assistant State Veterinarian T.R. Lansford on why detections have increased, on the border trapping and surveillance programme, on the inspection and movement-permit process, and on the 24-hour reporting expectation.
8. 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).
9. 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.
10. Texas Screwworm Quarantine Returns to the Hill Country, this site, November 11, 2026 — earlier coverage of this outbreak, when the notice listed 25 counties and the newest zones were 31 and 32 in Bandera, Medina, Crockett, Irion and Reagan Counties.