Animal Health Commission to Vote Nov. 3 on Certifying Private Screwworm Inspectors

The Texas Animal Health Commission will meet Nov. 3 in Austin and vote on a rule creating a corps of certified private inspectors who could clear animals to leave screwworm quarantine zones. It is the commission’s first meeting since the New World screwworm was found in a hunter-harvested elk on a Pecos County game ranch, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture called the first detection of the parasite in wildlife in the United States.

A federal laboratory in Kerrville confirmed that sample Oct. 21. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, which announced it, said the animal health commission would redraw an infested zone in response, and asked hunters to inspect carcasses before field dressing them. The commission’s own running tally, read Oct. 27, stands at 49 premises in 19 counties since a Zavala County calf became the first Texas case June 3. Movement restrictions cover parts of 13 counties, and the agency has been releasing ground about as fast as it quarantines more: orders lifting restrictions in Crockett, Pecos and Terrell counties are dated Oct. 23, one day before a new order covering Hudspeth.

The rule up for adoption would push inspection work out to people the agency does not employ. An applicant takes the commission’s screwworm preparedness course, passes the exam at 94 percent or better, and holds the certification for one year; renewal means sitting through the course and the exam again. The commission could pull a certification on any of several grounds, among them failing to report signs of the parasite at once.

Three other rule packages ride with it. One scraps the fee chapter and requires accredited veterinarians to file health certificates electronically, still $7 apiece, with penalties reaching $5,000 a day. Another folds the goat entry rules into the sheep rule without changing what a goat must show at the state line. The third sets terms for Texas show birds traveling to out-of-state events, and bars their return from any state where bird flu was already present when they left. Comment on all four closed Oct. 11.

Also posted: executive director orders and movement waivers, enforcement orders on rule violations, a budget vote and a federal agriculture department update. Written comments to the commission closed Oct. 30, but in-person registration opens at 8:30 a.m. and public comment is item 18. The meeting can be heard on a conference line.

Meeting at a glance

Commission members

• Coleman Locke — chairman; Wharton; beef cattle seat; ranch manager.
• Jimmie Ruth Evans — San Antonio; sheep and goat seat; rancher.
• Ken Jordan — San Saba; livestock market seat; auction owner.
• T.J. Klein Jr. — College Station; poultry seat; egg farm director.
• Barret J. Klein — Boerne; swine seat; farm owner.
• Joe Leathers — Clarendon; equine seat.
• Tommy Oates — Huntsville; exotic livestock and fowl seat; rancher.
• Joe Osterkamp — Farwell; dairy seat; farm owner.
• Wendee L. Payne, Ph.D. — Lubbock; general public seat; software consultant.
• Ben Scholz — Lavon; general public seat; farm owner.
• Kynan Sturgess, D.V.M. — Hereford; veterinary seat; clinic partner.
• Johnny E. Trotter — Hereford; feedlot seat; feedyard owner.
• Benjamin Turner, Ph.D. — Kingsville; general public seat; university professor.

Names, cities, seats and terms are from the commission’s own commission page, read October 27, which shows no vacancy and names no vice chairman. Terms are staggered and expire Sept. 6 of 2027, 2029 or 2031. Chairman Locke’s listed date, Sept. 6, 2027, is given for the chairmanship; the page prints no separate commissioner term for him. Joe Leathers’s occupation is not given on the page and none is printed here. The commission’s members page labels Locke’s seat “cattle raisers”; its legislative appropriations request for 2028–29 labels it “beef cattle,” which is used here. Dr. Lewis Dinges is named executive director on the posted agenda itself and signs the appropriations request as executive director and state veterinarian. The most recent governor’s appointment to this commission found was Ben Scholz in March 2026, with four reappointments; nothing later was found through Oct. 27. Meeting contact: Jeanine Coggeshall, general counsel, (512) 719-0718.