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Don't Let a Livestock Pest Sentence Healthy Shelter Pets to Death
Final signature count: 58
58 signatures toward our 30,000 goal
Sponsor: The Animal Rescue Site
Thousands of healthy shelter dogs and cats are stuck — not because they're sick, but because no one has built a smarter rule yet.
Thousands of dogs and cats are sitting in Texas shelters right now — healthy, uninfected, and waiting. They haven't tested positive for anything. They don't have an infestation. They are stuck because a livestock pest called the New World screwworm has triggered sweeping animal transport restrictions across the state, and those restrictions make no distinction between a sick animal and a healthy one.1
The result is a quiet crisis unfolding behind kennel doors across Texas.
What Is the New World Screwworm?
The New World screwworm is a parasitic fly whose larvae burrow into the living flesh of warm-blooded animals. Eradicated from the United States decades ago, it has been moving north through Mexico and into border states. The primary threat is to livestock — cattle, sheep, and other agricultural animals — where an infestation can devastate a herd fast. Dogs and cats can be affected too, but they are far less likely to serve as meaningful vectors of spread.2
The threat is real. A serious response is warranted. But a serious response is not the same as a blanket ban on moving healthy companion animals.
How the Transport Freeze Is Hurting Shelters
Over the past decade, interstate rescue transport became a genuine lifeline for overcrowded Texas shelters. Rescue organizations in lower-intake states would pull animals from high-capacity Texas facilities, opening space and saving lives on both ends. That pipeline has now largely stopped.1
Animals that would have transferred to rescue partners in other states remain in facilities that were already stretched before the restrictions took effect. When shelters overflow, euthanasia rates rise. That's not opinion — it's a documented operational reality.
A Smarter Response Already Exists
Veterinary professionals and shelter organizations have identified practical tools to address the screwworm risk without shutting down rescue transport entirely. A targeted protocol — veterinary examination, screwworm-specific screening, and an appropriate quarantine period before any interstate transfer — would give receiving states documented assurance that incoming animals pose no risk.2
The current restrictions don't make that distinction. A healthy dog examined and cleared by a licensed veterinarian is treated the same as an animal with an active infestation. That gap has life-or-death consequences for shelter animals who have done nothing wrong.
What We're Asking For
The USDA Secretary, the Texas Animal Health Commission, and participating state veterinarians have the authority to build a coordinated emergency framework — one that holds the screwworm threat in check while keeping the rescue pipeline open for animals that pose no documented risk. The science exists. The expertise exists. The tools exist.1,2
What's needed now is a policy response that matches the actual risk rather than one that defaults to the broadest possible restriction and leaves healthy animals to pay the price.
Sign the petition now to urge federal and state agriculture officials to create an emergency protocol that protects livestock and keeps rescue transport moving for the Texas shelter pets whose lives depend on it.
