. Activities handbook. Veterinary medicine. tack had stimulated 20 years of agitation for an eradication program. However, although good control methods were available, they were not considered sufliciently effective to justify an eradication effort until the development of a revolutionary approach to insect control. This concept envisioned the elimination of an insect pest by overwhelming the native popu- lation with sterile male flies. Since female screwworm flies when mated with sterile male flies laid only infertile eggs, race suicide seemed possible. Research entomologists of the Agricult
. Activities handbook. Veterinary medicine. tack had stimulated 20 years of agitation for an eradication program. However, although good control methods were available, they were not considered sufliciently effective to justify an eradication effort until the development of a revolutionary approach to insect control. This concept envisioned the elimination of an insect pest by overwhelming the native popu- lation with sterile male flies. Since female screwworm flies when mated with sterile male flies laid only infertile eggs, race suicide seemed possible. Research entomologists of the Agricultural Research Service conceived and developed the sterile-fly method of insect control. Basic tech- niques for the rearing, sterilization, and dis- tribution of screwworm flies were perfected and field trials demonstrated that screwworms could be eliminated from localized areas. Early in 1957, a team of a veterinarian and an entomologist surveyed the screwworm situa- tion in the Southeast. Their purpose was (1) to determine losses due to screwworms, (2) to evaluate the probability of success of an eradi- cation program using the sterile-fly technique, and (3) to estimate the cost and duration of such a program. The survey revealed an an- nual loss of approximately $20 million in the Southeast, half of which was in Florida. The surveyors concluded that screwworms prob- ably could be eradicated in 2 years at a cost of about $10 million. Further investigation revealed that an area of some 50,000 square miles, mostly in penin- sular Florida, would require weekly dispersals of .sterile male flies averaging 500 per square mile. This called for a building of sufficient size, and with adequate equipment, to produce a minimum of 50 million flies per week. Ex- pansion from an experimental fly-rearing plant, with production of about 2 million flies per week, required the design and construction of new equipment, improvement and mechani- zation of all operations synchronized to the life cy
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